China and Christianity

Y

HIE

PRINCETON, N. J. ''^

Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund.

BV 3415 .M52 1900
Michie, Alexander, 1833-

1902.
China and Christianity

CHINA AND CHRISTIANITY.

CHINA AND CHRISTIANITY

/

BY

ALEXANDER MICHIE

AUTHOR OF ''MISSIONARIES IN CHINA'

BOSTON

KNIGHT AND MILLET

1900

Copyright^ igoo,

By Knight and Millet

F. H. Gilson Company
Printers and Bookbinders
Boston, U.S.A.

Introduction*

A FEW words of introduction to this volume
may not be out of place, as the author and
his writings are little known to American
readers. Mr. Alexander Michie has been
for nearly twenty years the correspondent of
the London Times, resident in Peking. During
that period he has enjoyed such advantages
as come to the representative of so influential
a journal. He has been brought into contact
with not only the highest of Chinese official-
dom, but with the representatives of foreign
powers, many of whom have been prominent
figures in the game of Diplomacy so actively
played in the far East.

A careful observer, and a close student of
all questions bearing upon the Chinese problem.

vi Introduction*

he knows whereof he writes, and in this
volume has discussed with rare calmness and
sobriety the many perplexing questions which
have culminated in the present deplorable
outbreak in China.

This volume was published a few years
since in Tien Tsin, reaching only a small
circle of readers among the English speaking
people of the East. Its merits entitle it to
a wider reading, and there can be no more
opportune occasion than the present to offer
it to American readers, as a helpful aid to
the formation of an enlightened public opinion
on one of the burning questions of the hour.

The Publishers.

PREFACE.

A PUBLICATION which meets but qualified
approval from esteemed friends may be thought
to stand in need of an Apology.

There seems to be some fear that the ten-
dency of the following essay is to widen
rather than to heal the breach by fostering
Chinese prejudice against Christianity on the
one hand and displeasing an influential section
of the foreign public on the other. Beneath
this apprehension may possibly be a latent feel-
ing that as regards the institutions of Christen-
dom in the East, the rule for speakers and
writers should be nil nisi bonum. But such im-
plied immunity, if ever claimed in words,
would not be conceded by one section of the
Christian Church to another.

Fully recognizing that there is a time as well
as a place to speak and to be silent, the writer

Vlll

Preface.

considers that the present is no time for reti-
cence respecting matters which keep the rela-
tions between Chinese and foreigners in a state
of dangerous tension, but that on the contrary
it is just the time for plain speaking on these
burning questions. We Western nations stand
in a position of peculiar moral responsibility
towards China. She has not sought us, but
we her. She does not press her religion or
her polity on us, but we press ours on her.
In such a relationship the onus of justification
necessarily rests on the stronger who imposes
his will on the weaker ; and where, as in the
present case, no competent neutral arbiter ex-
ists it becomes the duty of the aggressor him-
self, if he desires to be just, to assume, as far
as may be, the functions of such ideal referee,
and to give a patient consideration to all the
pleas, substantial or flimsy, advanced by, or on
behalf of, the weaker side.

This obligation, which has been understood
and loyally discharged in regard to such tangi-
ble matters as trade, carries tenfold weight
where moral relations are concerned; and those
who resolve to support religion, among an alien

Preface. ix

people, by force, owe it to themselves to con-
sider well both what they do, and how they do
it. Errors in common affairs seldom sink so
deep or spread so wide as to be irremediable,
but mistakes in propagating and establishing
religion may quickly pass beyond remedy, and
bear consequences beyond calculation. For
its transcendency involves misconception and
misdirection ; its purity gives the measure of
its susceptibility to contamination ; while its
hold of the inner feelings of humanity diffuses
and renders indelible whatever taint it may
contract from its surroundings. Hence the
tenacity of opinions and observances, even of
a trivial character, which have once become in-
corporated with any religious cult. Hence
also the difficulty of religious reform as com-
pared with other kinds.

Obviously then an essence of such subtlety
demands the finest tact on the part of those
who have the handling of it, in whatever capa-
city. And though it is not possible, for want
of a competent and acknowledged authority, to
protect the Christianity as we guard the purity
of the vaccine lymph which is imported into

X Preface*

the country, it ought not to be too much to
expect that the grosser elements of untruth,
injustice and vulgar strife should be, as far as
possible, eliminated alike from friendly and un-
friendly association with the introduction into
China of what is justly claimed to be the crown
and consummation of the world's religions.

To those, if there be any such, who think
the cause of religion may be served by hiding
any part of the record it would be difficult to
give an answer which is not already patent in
the exceeding frankness of both the Hebrew
and the Christian Scriptures. The fear of tell-
ing the Chinese too much would be in any case
an idle fear, seeing the books of history and of
observation lie wide open. Who, for example,
shall prevent them from discussing the episode
of Uganda ? The recent dictum of an African
missionary that " influence which is gained at
the price of keeping unpleasant truths in the
background is not worth having " has a wide
application. No lasting understanding is likely
to be attained between China and the Western
world without unreserved communications
touching matters of fact, and the dropping of

Preface* xi

all hypocritical pretences on both sides. No
apology therefore ought to be necessary for
even a perfunctory effort to expose misunder-
standing, though it is at the same time devoutly
to be wished that some competent hand, say, a
missionary of light and leading, with experi-
mental knowledge for his guide, may take up
and develop the subject in a manner worthy of
the great interests involved.

The issue at stake, in the conception of the
writer, is nothing less than the mode in which
Christianity shall be introduced to the largest
population in the world ; whether it shall en-
ter in the gentleness of its true nature, like
showers on thirsty soil ; or with storm and
cataclysm, leaving legacies of hate to future
generations. Or rather such would have been
the issue had matters not already gone beyond
the bounds of so simple a formula. The ques-
tion is now practically reduced to this, —
whether the advance of Christianity shall
approximate more to the one or the other of
these alternative modes. Even in this atten-
uated form the subject is of serious import ;
for considering the flatness of the Chinese life

xii Preface.

and the general poverty of its ideals the regen-
erating force of Christianity seems to be the
thing of which China stands most desperately
in need. " There is now in the world," says
Mr. Lilly in a recent work, " what we may
call the Christian temper, with all its charities
and courtesies, a temper of self-devotion to
some worthy cause, of self-effacement for some
high end, of fortitude and forgiveness, of
purity and pitifulness, of generosity and gentle-
ness." If to bring the Chinese within the in-
fluence of such a " temper " be an object
worthy of all sacrifice, it behoves those con-
cerned to see to it that the very considerable
sacrifices — in money and in precious lives, in
political principle and in international comity
— which are now being made be not operating
as hindrances to the desired process.

Needless to say it is beside the author's
purpose to discuss Christianity in any way
whatsoever. Only the vehicles and wrappage
of it are touched on, and these no further than
seemed necessary to clear the ground for the
political survey. The theme is not " China "
nor " Christianity," still less the two combined.

Preface,

Xlll

but only the thin ragged line of actual or
potential contact between them, external to
both. So much, and no more of the colliding
surfaces is glanced at as was requisite for a
superficial diagnosis of the collision. It will
be for the courteous reader, who may deem it
worth while, to judge whether the prescribed
limit has been overstepped.

The motive of the essay is to draw atten-
tion to the breach of continuity between the
minds of the several high contracting parties
under whose combined authority the propa-
gation of Christianity is carried on in China,
and to suggest the want of a more harmonious
adjustment between the parts of a complex
politico-religious machine made up of hetero-
geneous elements. The present is a natural
sequel to the tract on "Missionaries in China"
published last year. In that essay the promi-
nence was given to the methods of the propa-
ganda ; in this the broader considerations
which affect the policy of governments and
administrative bodies are more particularly
dwelt upon. The subjects overlap to a cer-
tain extent, but repetitions have been as much

XIV

Preface*

as possible avoided. The notes, somewhat
promiscuously thrown in while the sheets were
in the press, have been culled, with scarcely an
exception, from casual readings after the text
was written ; and they thus possess, for the
author at least, a certain corroborative and
corrective value.

No one can be more sensible than the
author of the lame and the almost negative
conclusion to which his meandering excursion
has inevitably led. The fiction of looking
through the glasses of a jin-de-sihle Chinese
politician is clumsy and halting, and perhaps
this attempt to "see ourselves as others see
us " attains no nearer to a true presentment of
the reality than those school-room diagrams
which profess to show how the Earth looks as
viewed from the Moon. But it possesses this
advantage over them that it can be tested and

its blemishes exposed.

A. M.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. I'AGE

I. State Problems and the Chinese way of

SOLVING them . I

II. Foreign Relations 8

III. Foreign Religion 14

IV. Exoteric Christianity 25

V. Christianity in China 54

VI. The Sources of Chinese Opposition . 70

VII. The Taiping Rebellion 93

VIII. Anti-Christian Literature loi

IX. Christianity in Japan 108

X. Practical Considerations 112

XI. Relation of Christianity to People,

Literati, and Imperial Government . 138

XII. Administrative Machinery 152

XIII. Mutual Obligations 163

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX

1 183

II 190

III 226

XV

Qiina and Qiristianity.

^ ft|W Jfl

I.

STATE PROBLEMS AND THE CHINESE WAY OF
SOLVING THEM.

In common with all other states China has
to grapple with the two problems of internal
polity and external relations; but she treats
them with a patience and a passiveness pecu-
liarly her own, which has constantly to be
borne in mind in estimating the motives of her
action in any given circumstances. Foreign
precedents have little or no weight with China,
and hers are for the most part as far removed
from European conventional ways as the East
is distant from the West. It is, however, the
misfortune of the Chinese Government and
people to be weighed in a balance which they
have never accepted ; and to have their short-

2 China and Christianity*

comings, so ascertained, made the basis of re-
clamations of varying degrees of gravity.
Naturally, therefore, the bill of grievances from
time to time presented by foreign nations fails
to reach the conscience of China, just as the
unwearied criticisms from without on her ne-
glect of good government fall absolutely dead.
The want of the receptive faculty renders the
result of all such representations as blank as
a photograph on an unprepared plate.

In the case of her external relations, how-
ever, force may be and has been used to supply
the lack of reasoned conviction, and a me-
chanical compliance with Western practices,
within narrow limits, thereby more or less es-
tablished. But so far as it is against nature,
so far is such conformity liable to break down
unless the machinery which produced it is kept
in constant motion.

In their academical discussions foreigners
usually take the fullest cognizance of this state
of things, and those of them who do not come
into direct contact with the Chinese are per-
haps disposed to make even undue allowance
for the hardships of their position. Those, on

State Problems* 3

the other hand, who are placed at the points
of international collision are in the habit of
insisting on the Chinese people and govern-
ment being measured absolutely by Western
standards as the only condition under which
working relations can be maintained. Indeed,
the pioneers of commerce and Christianity,
strung up to a high pitch of zeal for the suc-
cess of their respective schemes, require the
Chinese to submit, in strict accordance with
treaty of course, to demands which could not
even be named to any other sovereign State.
And they seem to expect not only immediate
compliance, but cheerful and hearty compliance.
Dr. Griffith John, for example, in his able
statements of the missionary case, makes a
special grievance of the want of alacrity which
the Chinese show in obeying the behests of
foreign powers. Though knowing full well
that he and his cause are only maintained in
China by external force overruling the settled
policy of the Government, based on the inter-
ests of the lettered class and the convictions
of the people, he nevertheless, in his commu-
nications to the papers in China and England,

4 China and Christianity*

makes it a serious part of his accusation of the
Chinese Government that the foreign Ministers
had to complain of the great difficulty with
which they obtained the promulgation of the
Imperial Edict condemning the populace for
their attacks on missionaries in 1891. Let the
case be imagined of an alien propaganda in
Kazan or Kieff being set upon by a posse of
popes and ruffians, and then reflect on the kind
of " difficulty " a German or English Minister
would experience in obtaining the publication
of an Ukase condemning wholesale the assail-
ants and lauding the strangers as immaculate !
Though China must be held to her engage-
ments, there always will be a difference be-
tween the manner of fulfilment of a voluntary
obligation and of compliance with one imposed
by force, especially if it runs counter to na-
tional feeling ; and there is wisdom in frankly
recognizing what cannot in any case be disputed
or altered.^

1 The despatches of the British Minister pubhshed in the
Riots Blue Book, 1892, and the press criticisms thereon, are
pitched in the same tone of astonishment at the reluctance and
insincerity of the Chinese — as if these were quite new discov-
eries!

State Problems. 5

Perhaps, however, all these pioneers are
right, for life to each one of them is too short
to wait for the Chinese mind to be educated
up to the point of willing assent to their vari-
ous aggressive pretensions ; and too short for
them even to attempt to comprehend the
Chinese way of looking at things. Hence,
with them, " force," in its most direct form,
is the only " remedy " within reach. While,
however, admitting that such may be the only
safe and practical ground which the advanced
guards of foreigners can wisely take up, in the
actual circumstances, there is behind and around
them, though aloof from the heat and dust of
the struggle, a whole atmosphere of opinion
of varying density in which ideas are generated
as clouds are formed in the clefts of the moun-
tains, and where influences slowly gather which
eventually shape the ends of the toilers in the
valleys, rough hew them how they may. Such
phenomena, merely to take two current in-
stances, as the anti-opium and the Indian
factory labour agitations which are fermenting
in England, and seemingly gaining force, with-
out reference to the interests or opinions of the

6 China and Christianity*

parties directly concerned, may serve to re-
mind all classes of men who are too much
absorbed in their own calling to give full
consideration to aught but the exigencies of
the day, that, independently of them, there
may be latent forces eventually capable of
over-ruling them in unforeseen ways, for good
or evil.

The principle on which the Government of
China regulates its national affairs, internal and
external, is, as has been hinted, that of mas-
terly inactivity. Chinese statesmen and place-
hunters do not find congenial occupation in
remodelling the constitution, as is the case in
some other countries, but rather acquiesce in the
distempers of the body politic like an easy-going
man who never seeks the aid of a physician.
Everything is left to nature, and when matters
go wrong they are usually allowed to right
themselves as best they may. Hence the
Chinese — for people and Government are the
same — are seen to suffer abuses of every kind
to consume their substance with the same fatal-
istic apathy with which they meet natural
calamities. They recoil from political experi-

State Problems- 7

mentation, and oppose to all innovations an
immense silent resistance, especially in cases
where they cannot form a distinct concep-
tion of the real scope or tendency of the
change.

8 China and Christianity*

II.

FOREIGN RELATIONS.

It is the same patient imperturbable spirit
which directs the foreign policy of China. She
makes no plunges, but advances, when forced,
by tentative and reluctant steps, with the skid
on every wheel. Her constitution, the out-
come of the empiricism of many ages, and her
natural temperament, of which it is the em-
bodied expression, combine in a harmony of
slow movements, and excessive deliberation.
So consistently, indeed, does this characteristic
dominate governmental action that the dilatory
precautions which are taken to meet impending
changes not only fail to overtake the object,
but through their untimeliness, actually create
new and gratuitous dangers.

It is only on some such theory as this that
the confused and irritating position of her
foreign relations seems explicable. The West-
ern nations did not give China the time neces-

Foreign Relations* 9

sary for her to think, but rushed her into
action for which she was unprepared, which
she did not understand, and for which she has
to suffer whatever may be the consequences of
the blind bargain she was compelled to make.
Had the Government of China been fully
acquainted with the character of the Western
nations it would perhaps have run all risks to
exclude them from the territory, absolutely and
forever. Not even the modicum of a strangled
commerce such as that carried on at Macao and
Canton, nor the Russian prisoners entertained,
with their priests and teachers, for 200 years in
Peking, nor the coquetting with the Catholic
missionaries during the sixteenth and seven-
teenth, and even the later centuries, would
have been permitted. Only by complete seclu-
sion could China hope to remain what she had
been, or even to secure her stability as a united
and homogeneous nation. But having small
conception of either the power or the spirit of
the Christian nations, and like statesmen all
over the world, dealing from hand to mouth
with the circumstances of the day, the rulers
of China admitted the foreigner in the North

lo China and Christianity^

and the South, in his threefold character —
political, commercial, and religious.

There are intuitions which precede knowl-
edge ; and as the instincts of certain animals
enable them, even without experience, to rec-
ognize the hereditary enemies of their race, so
the advent of foreigners seems to have inspired
the Chinese with a certain indefinable fear,
begotten perhaps of their traditional experience
in dealing with their territorial neighbours.
But the strangers were so insignificant and so
deferential that curiosity overcame caution, and
transitory obscured permanent interests, and so
it came about that instead of shutting them
out of the country the Emperors were content
to place the foreigners under close surveillance.
The fate of their empire was probably in a
certain sense as much sealed by those innocent
admissions as was that of the Ottoman empire
in Europe by the first capture of AzofF by the
Czar of Muscovy in 1696, though in both
cases the process of disintegration may be indefi-
nitely protracted. Only a small leak through
the reservoir, it is true, but a fissure ever widen-
ing, and with the pressure of incumbent water

Foreign Relations* n

ever increasing, certain to end in bringing down
the whole flood on the valley below, either in
the form of devastating torrents or in safe and
beneficent streams, as fate and the nature of
the preparations for its reception may deter-
mine. The regulation of the inflow has hitherto
proved too much for the Chinese. Perceiving
the potency of the new force, they dreamed of
schemes of expulsion so ill conceived that each
step taken to repress the foreign invasion in-
variably resulted in opening new avenues for
its advance, every concession made to the
foreigner serving but to stimulate his appetite
for more.

The actual situation resulting from this des-
ultory contest is naturally regarded with differ-
ent eyes by the various parties concerned.
There are doubtless foreigners who would
anticipate even the break-up of the empire
with the kind of weird glee with which wanton
boys hail conflagrations, and some who, while
they would sincerely deplore such a catas-
trophe, would still think even that price not
too dear to pay for the progress and enlighten-
ment of the people who would survive the dis-

12 China and Christianity.

solution of the empire, and who represent the
ultimate interests to be served. Among the
Chinese themselves, too, diversities of senti-
ment on the subject of imperial unity and per-
manence may easily be credited. But the
government, the governing classes, both pres-
ent and future, have the one burden laid upon
them, by the meanest as well as by the noblest
considerations that can rule the actions of men,
of preserving the empire, the dynasty, and the
existing polity intact as they have received
them ; and should that come to be visibly
hopeless, then at least to make as long a fight
in their defence as possible. Among patriotic
statesmen animated by this common aim, there
will of course still be divisions according to
mental calibre and natural temperament, quite
sufficient, under given conditions, to dislocate
the machinery of government and reduce it to
impotency. Some would resist not invasion
merely, but all innovation, as such, and would
defend the old regime in all its parts with their
last breath ; while others would encourage even
sweeping reforms in order thereby to gain
strength to resist effectually what may be found

Foreign Relations* 13

resistible. By a miracle of regeneration, of
which, however, not the faintest symptom is yet
apparent, the threatening danger might be
averted, and a true reforming party in the
country might thus render to the State the
most essential service.

But whatever differences may divide them as
to their methods, all parties probably unite in
the aim of conserving the State from every
change imposed on it from without, whether
by the direct force of arms or by the spread of
the subtler though not less potent social forces.
It is incumbent, therefore, on those who are
responsible for the peace and honour of the
Chinese empire, before all things to acquaint
themselves accurately with the nature of the
complex foreign forces which are pressing on
it from every side.

14 China and Christianity^

III.

FOREIGN RELIGION.

Of all the elements of which the invading
force is made up none is more formidable than
the religious element, from which the ultimate
danger to the political fabric is the most likely to
arise. Already the religion of the foreigners
has shown itself fearlessly aggressive, and it
possesses faculties of expansion and intensity
which, if allowed free play, may in no long
time cause the religious to tower over all the
other foreign interests in the demands which it
will make on Chinese hospitality. The rela-
tions of the government to the foreign re-
ligion, or religions, are so far simplified that
there can henceforth be no question of exclud-
ing them, as they are already established in
fact, and protected in law, by treaty. What re-
mains for the Chinese government to consider
is how to deal with these religions so as to get
out of them the greatest amount of good, and

Foreign Religion. 15

to minimize the evils incidental to their propa-
gation. For which purpose as careful a study-
as the circumstances permit should be made of
the religious system which is forcing itself with-
out ceremony wherever it can find an opening
throughout the empire.

The international credentials of Christianity,
as registered in the various treaties of 1858 on
which toleration was stipulated for its teachers
and followers, are simple in the extreme: it in-
culcated virtue and taught men to do as they
would be done by. But the Chinese had their
own experience of the inadequacy of this de-
scription, which, moreover, would be rejected
as insufficient by most Christians ; and it is
perhaps to be regretted that the foreign nego-
tiators, who were solely responsible for the
phraseology, should have condescended to
apologetic expressions, since the treaties were
made in their hour of victory. The partiality
of the description was not calculated to remove
prejudice from the Chinese mind as to the
merits of the religion, a prejudice which would
naturally operate with renewed force as soon as
the grip of the soldier was relaxed. Perhaps,

1 6 China and Christianity.

however, this is of little importance now that
the statesmen of China are called upon to form
their opinion of the Christian religion from
fresh data, and to judge therefrom of the char-
acter of the protection to which it may be en-
titled. On one side the representatives of
Christianity challenge examination of what they
promulgate, and on the other the exigencies of
the State demand that the challenge be taken
up by the public men of China ; and they will
evade it at their own peril and that of the
common weal.

But what must be the embarrassment of a
Chinese statesman who approaches this inquiry
in a serious spirit? If he asks — what and
where is Christianity ? the first answer will be
a babel of conflicting, nay, mutually destructive
claims from a hundred different quarters, each
claimant calling aloud, Lo, it is here ! Close
attention to their utterances would show him
that a doctor of Christianity can hardly deliver
himself of an exegesis, however chiselled and
chastened, but some other teacher of equal
eminence will promptly assail it. It might
perhaps occur to a laborious-minded heathen

Foreign Religion* 17

to try to discover Christianity by the exhaus-
tive process of placing the contradictions of its
rival exponents ^ over against each other, and
by cancelling out all the propositions which
were at variance, attain at last to the unchal-
lengeable quintessence. But the residuum,
though in reality vital, would, to the apprehen-
sion of such a man, be so intangible as to sug-
gest doubt of the accuracy of the analysis. If,
dazed by the discords of its miscellaneous
professors, he should think of harking back to
the fountain-head with the view of seeking to
understand Christianity by searching the rec-

1 u

How much harm has been done by the jealousy and en-
mity between Lutherans and Calvinists in the time of the
Reformation in Germany, between Episcopalians and Dissenters
in England, and in our mission work in China by the term-ques-
tion controversy, and the separation caused by it. Human pas-
sion and sin, sometimes misnamed ' conscience,' lies beneath all
these eruptions of human nature." — Dr. Faber.

" Protestantism is not only a veritable Babel but a horrible
theory, and an immoral practice which blasphemes God, degrades
man, and endangers Society." — Cardinal Cuesta's Cate-
chism (1872), cited by Prof. Schaff.

" Dr. Elder Gumming of Glasgow draws attention to the
great evils of the day, and especially to the prevalent indifference
to the growth of the Romish Q\i-\ixz\ir — Messe7tger, April,
1892.

1 8 China and Christianity*

ords of its origin, still it is doubtful if complete
satisfaction would be attained, for he might
easily fail to discover such correspondence be-
tween the teachings of its Founder and the
practices of its modern professors as would
conclusively establish their identity ; and he
might argue therefrom that the thing which is
popularly called Christianity is something dif-
ferent from that which was revealed by Christ,
or his immediate successors.

It is assumed of course that the inquirer is
not endowed with the spiritual perception
which would enable him to penetrate the
barriers and uncover the divine spark which
the grossest forms have never been able wholly
to extinguish, though they have wofully ob-
scured it. Consequently he can only make an
objective study of the phenomena and their
outward effects which is, indeed, all that any
public man in any country is called on to
do. For, no matter what his private beliefs
or sympathies may be, they must, in every
loyal statesman, be strictly subordinated to the
mundane interests of the State, as a state. To
Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Were a

Foreign Religion* 19

responsible Chinese official even converted to
Christianity he would be bound in honour and
in fidelity to his trust to suppress his personal
feelings when legislating for, or administering
the laws respecting Christianity ; and he would
damage the cause of his creed itself were he
to transgress that rule.

So far as we have followed him, therefore,
negative results only have rewarded the search
of our Chinese inquirer. There still remain,
however, two wide fields of research open to
him. One is the external history of the growth
of Christianity ; and the other is the observa-
tion of modern Christendom ; both of which,
through the spread of general education, are
coming within the scope of Chinese scrutiny.

Whoever enters on such an inquiry soon
discovers that it is not Christianity that he has
to concern himself with, but Christians, a very
different matter ; and it is not even Christians,
as individual men or citizens, but the Church,
in its innumerable forms, with infinite powers
of reproduction. It is not in fact a religious

20 China and Christianity*

problem in the true sense of the word that
presses on China, but a politico-eeclesiastical
question ; the alleged rights of societies of
men who, having adopted certain religious
tenets, base thereon their claim to special civil
privileges. That is a clear deduction alike
from historical records and contemporary ob-
servation.

It is not uncommon, and it is moreover
perfectly fair, for Christian propagandists to
claim modern Europe as voucher for the mer-
its of their religion ; although it may appear
to be bringing forward the strength and mag-
nificence of the kingdoms of the earth to attest
the power of the kingdom emphatically de-
clared to be " not of this world." It is, how-
ever, a plea better calculated to confirm the
allegiance of adherents than to carry complete
conviction to the mind of an unsympathetic
spectator. Our imaginary Chinese inquirer,
for example, might ask, as others have done,
whether blue eyes and red hair have not some-
what to do with the progress of Europe ;
whether Christianity be not in its full develop-

Foreign Religion* 21

ment as much the consequence as the cause of
Western civilization, the two reacting on each
other. And he might even allege drawbacks
to the perfection of European society, as cer-
tain Chinese in fact have done, not without a
superficial show of success. The elevation of
women, to select the commonest item in the
Hst of the social triumphs of Christianity, —
■which, however, it may be contended, is an
achievement not wholly Christian, but partly
Teutonic — while it has conferred immeasur-
able benefits on society, has not been obtained
without the payment of a price, as every news-
paper and novel of the day testify.

The morahty of trade suppHes a more gener-
ally intelligible — though in fact a quite falla-
cious— test, and on that ground we have it
on the authority of the manager of a great
Banking Corporation that the Chinese stand
well. In other departments of life they fall
decidedly short of at least the modern standards
of Christendom, as for instance in the bar-
barity of their practices in war, and in judicial
proceedings.

The radical difference, however, between the

22 China and Christianity*

Christian and non-Christian people of zW
world shows itself rather in the progressive
vigour of the one as contrasted with the dull
and languorous resignation of the other ; and
this is a distinction which is visible at first
sight. A learned Oriental, not Chinese nor
Christian, once remarked to the writer that the
immense difference between Buddhism and
Christianity might be seen in the streets of
Peking as compared with those of Paris. Nor
is it on the mere passive virtues that any
advocate would rest the superiority of the
Christian over all other systems, but rather on
the energy of its positive philanthropy and
the principle of self-sacrifice which drives the
vast benevolent machinery of Christian coun-
tries, and to which there is nothing at all cor-
responding in the non-Christian world. This
could hardly escape any candid observer of
facts.^

1 " More than once I have heard a patient say, ' There is
no such love as this in all China.' " — China Med. Journal.

Organized philanthropy all over the world is, for the most
part, directly connected with active Christianity; and in all
schemes of help for the Chinese, as in schools, hospitals, famine
relief, it is the Christian missionaries who prompt the movement
and who alone can be relied upon for any sustained effort.

Foreign Religion^ 23

The manifest strength of the Western na-
tions is, however, calculated to make a deeper
impression on the mind of an average Oriental
than their moral superiority. And China, at
its wit^s end to find means of defending itself,
would doubtless accept Christianity with eager-
ness if it were but persuaded that strength was
a transferable commodity which would be im-
ported with the religion. But to import that
which nourishes strength is not necessarily to
acquire strength. Much depends on the powers
of assimilation which, until proved, must re-
main uncertain, and can, in this case, only be
proved by experiments which bar retreat. It
is with religion as with material civilization, the
form without the spirit would be a dead and
useless thing, of which the present condition of
the new Chinese navy may be cited as a case in
point.

But without accepting in full the proposition
sometimes offered, in good faith, to China that
she would become strong by becoming Chris-
tian, Chinese statesmen will nevertheless do
well to trace the steps by which the nations of
the West have attained to their present emi-

24 China and Christianity^

nence in arts and arms, and they will certainly
derive advantage from the study of the long
and sanguinary struggles by which the various
States have carved their way through barbarism
like African explorers cutting tracks through
the dark forest into the open light.

Exoteric Christianity* 25

IV.

EXOTERIC CHRISTIANITY.

The conditions under which Christianity
first made its way in the Western world natur-
ally suggest comparison with its present relations
to China. The analogy between the old em-
pire of Rome, and the existing Chinese empire
is, indeed, obvious, but the circumstances de-
termining the attitude of the respective States
towards the Christian system are so discrepant
that unless the qualification " exceptions ex-
cepted " be kept constantly in mind misleading
inferences may easily be drawn from it. Rome
made the acquaintance of Christianity as an in-
fant of unsuspected potentialities ; China en-
counters a full grown giant with a long dramatic
history. Such a contrast puts parallelism out
of the question ; while that decisive new factor,
the support of the modern propaganda by some
half-dozen of the greatest military powers, al-
most invalidates comparison between the con-

i6 China and Christianity*

dition of the modern Church and that of the
friendless followers ofi Him whose kingdom
was not of this world.

The most definite impression which the
progress of Christianity in the early centuries
of its growth would be likely to make on a
quite disinterested mind would probably be
that of the radical strength of a movement
which, through the faith and fervour of its
adherents, had proved itself irresistible ; an
impression not altogether reassuring as to the
political fate of nations on whom such a heavy
stone might fall. The Christians, while yet a
feeble band, would be seen stretching out their
hands to grasp at power, and by sheer force of
will and cohesion actually obtaining it, and
gradually gaining control of the affairs of the
State. The Christian subjects of the empire
of the world would be observed indifferent to
its decline, and if not actively accelerating, at
least doing little to arrest its fall, and even-
tually entering on possession of the escheated
estate, being the only capable men. One prac-
tical deduction which a Chinaman might draw
from these events would be that the old bottles

Exoteric Christianity* 27

were hardly good enough to hold such strong
wine ; and another, that if, at the end of 1 900
years, Christianity can boast of her social tri-
umphs, they have been gained at the cost of
the philosophies and civilization which previ-
ously existed.-^ Reflections of this kind may
well suffice to put the statesmen of an empire
as yet unchristianized on their guard in face of
so great a force, and to stir them to deep in-
quiry into its nature, aims, and methods. They
are not, however, called upon to weigh the re-
mote results of Christianity ; for the immedi-
ate present and the near future more than tax
the statesman's capacity for practical excogita-
tion ; nor has he any mission beyond his own
State. The ultimate good of the human race
is no concern of his ; and mankind at large will
do better without his gratuitous solicitude.

It would be interesting to know the musings
of a Chinese Emperor who could place him-
self in imagination in the shoes of one of
the Caesars of the first or second centuries.

^ " The most serious trouble for Japan at present is the extinc-
tion which has necessarily befallen her old code of morals and
ethics in the presence of the new civilization." — Japan Mail.

28 China and Christianity,

Could they have foreseen the future how would
they have demeaned themselves towards the
nascent religion ? It is permissible to suppose
that if the Antonines had really understood
Christianity they must have yielded personally
to its claims, and yet, had its future course
been revealed to them, they must, in duty to
the empire as an emperor would regard it,
have extinguished it as a society. Could a
sincere Christian then persecute the Christian
Church ? It would be a paradox, perhaps, but
scarcely a contradiction, for between personal
religion and the pretensions of an ambitious
corporation there is the clearest distinction.
And was not the history of the Church for
many centuries the unfolding of continuous
divergence from the precepts and the practices
of its Founder, who nevertheless in some
fashion or other retained and retains the alle-
giance of all sections of the universal Church P
Here in fact is the difficult question : how the
mixed bodies of self-styled Christians, such as
we see them in the world to-day, make good
their title to the name.

Between the spirituality of the religion of

Exoteric Christianity. 29

Christ, its elevating, purifying, and vivifying
power over individual men — in other words,
between the personal piety of Christians — and
the assumptions of collective Christianity, there
is a gulf as wide as the world. Whether hap-
pily or unhappily, the two have been so joined
together that no man can now sunder them ;
and they must in practice be treated as one.
It is with Christians as with political and other
combinations : the individual character of the
members is subdued to the interests, or dog-
mas, or principles of the whole body. Taken
separately they may be modest, truthful, and
charitable, while collectively they may be con-
strained to approve actions of an opposite kind
such as individually they would condemn.
Though, therefore. Christians, like other men,
invariably — and quite naturally — put forward
their innocent side as their title to considera-
tion, it must be repeated that that is not the
only side which rulers of States have to take
account of. Personal piety, charity, and self-
sacrifice are in truth qualities too subtle to be
weighed in the coarse scales of the politician,
who can only, even in Christian — how much

30 China and Christianity.

more in non-Christian — countries deal with
the external manifestations of Christian socie-
ties as they collide and interact with the other
elements of the body politic. It is with them
as with the dual character of the private citizen.
The law, or the State, deals with the several
members of society not according to their in-
nate worth or purity of motive, but strictly
according to their public record ; and the man
of exemplary life, the pious son, devoted hus-
band, and loving father who levies ship-money
or moves his neighbour's landmark is not
allowed to plead in defence the fine qualities
of his personal morahty. As Christian critics
of Mohammedanism usually brush away the
rehgious emotions which give it life, so must
politicians, as such, virtually set aside the ethe-
real principle which animates Christianity,
more especially politicians who are themselves
heathen.

The attention of an intelligent Chinese in-
quirer would naturally be drawn to the different
aspects which Christianity has assumed in the
successive stages of its growth, and throughout
the wide regions where it has taken root ; its

Exoteric Christianity* 31

chronological and its ethnical developments.
The intangible abstraction, pure Christianity,
he could only hope to deduce from many and
various data^ as the ideal focus of some great
ellipse may be inferred from observations at
different points of its circumference. Every-
where he would see the characteristic products
of the human nature of the people compounded
with the forms of the religion which they have
severally adopted. Of extant Christianity the
mere geographical distribution will perhaps
suggest as much as is necessary respecting the
main features of these compounds, without elab-
orate description. Its manifestations in North-
ern and Southern Europe and America, in
Russia, Switzerland, and Abyssinia may serve
as types of generic varieties ; while that colos-
sal compendium, the Church of Rome, contains
within itself almost every colour which the
many-coloured mind of man has imparted to
his religion.

The observer of this vast panorama spread
out over the Western world is naturally
prompted to compare these diverse forms, and
to deduce, if it be possible, from the visible

32 China and Christianity^

results the causes of their differentiation, as
well as the secret of their harmony, so far as
harmony may be discoverable. The complex
influence of climate, soil, and worldly circum-
stances, modes of life, of race, of education, of
political history, of communications, of epochs,
of the personality of apostles, of authority, of
wars, of hardships, of luxury ; in a word of
the myriad formative agencies which combine
to build up the character of humanity — might
suggest to one who came fresh to the subject
the attempt to render some rational account of
the varied development of popular Christian-
ity, and to unravel the double mystery of its
catholicity and its narrowness. For him, how-
ever, who is only in quest of such light as will
guide him in the despatch of business within
his own province, such an exhaustive investi-
gation, probably impossible even for a Buckle,
would be quite out of place. He will have to
content himself with bold and rapid generaliza-
tions, fortunate if these may perchance help
him to forecast in some vague manner the
character which the religion of Christ might be
expected to assume, when transplanted to the

Exoteric Chris tianity* 33

soil of China. For that is the real point on
which the interest of the inquest converges.

Inasmuch, however, as contemporary Chris-
tian nations are so far removed in race, tradi-
tions, and civilization from the actual con-
dition of the Chinese State, the comparative
study of these co-existing societies would yield,
at the best, results too speculative for use, and
it would be necessary, at the very least, to sup-
plement it by a chronological review of the
descent of modern Christianity, through its
many channels, from its origin. And this
would be the simpler undertaking of the two
in that the materials of such a review have
already been digested by historical students
who, if not impartial, are at least sufficiently
distant from the events they describe to form
a judgment clearer than it is possible for an
ordinary man to form with respect to the tran-
sactions of his own time. The modern world
indeed, whether social, political, or religious,
would be as unintelligible without some knowl-
edge of the successive agitations which have
produced it as words often are without their
etymology ; and on the other hand past events

34 China and Christianity ♦

would be very imperfectly understood without
the retrospective light thrown on them by the
consummations to which they have in their
different ways led up. Every stage of its prog-
ress will reveal something of the true nature
of Christianity, fragmentary, however, like the
tesselae of a mosaic picture, and whosoever
would gain an approximately just idea of it
must take it in perspective, looking at the be-
ginning from the end, and at the end from, the
beginning.

From the time when the movement gathered
its new-born forces timidly and anxiously in
an upper room in Jerusalem to the ubiquitous
display, courageous and confident, of our own
day, the drama of Christianity has never
ceased to be crowded with incidents which
stand out and challenge investigation. Like a
stream from the mountains cutting its way im-
partially through all obstructions the new
religion burst through every class and condi-
tion of men : the remnants of the philosophers
of Greece, the soldiers and poHticians of Rome,
Arabs on one side and Goths on the other,
the commonest and rudest barbarians as well as

Exoteric Christianity* 35

the most cultured scholars, reducing them all
to the common level of subjects of the Church;
and all the chords of human life were agitated
to the uttermost.

In its passage through so many strata the
stream was perhaps enriched rather than puri-
fied, for the debris of the different paganisms
which it undermined was borne on its bosom
and distributed over the new continent of un-
folding thought like the glacial boulders which
are strewn over Europe, far from the rock
bed whence they were detached. And even as
scientists speculate as to the origin of the one
so do metaphysicians find their ingenuity some-
times taxed to trace the genealogy of the
other. During its long and chequered course,
the Church has shown itself in depression
and in triumph, in the extremes of poverty
and of wealth, and almost in the extremes of
depravity and virtuous exaltation, and it has
shown how the principles of Christianity re-act
on many varieties of race and character and
many phases of human life. The history of
the Church is thus a museum of vital experi-
ments worked out but not yet fiilly classified.

2 6 China and Christianity*

an open book from which no hungry mind,
whether learned or unlearned, need turn empty-
away.

The question then is : What leading im-
pressions of Christianity would a moderately
informed Chinese be likely to derive from such
a hurried survey of the past and present as is
above suggested, and what conception might
he form of the probable social results of its
inoculation into the actual life of China ? No
man not himself in contact with the magnetic
power of Christianity can hope to appreciate
its value in the regeneration of individual
character ; and it is scarcely necessary to repeat
that the spiritual or essential element which
has kept Christianity from breaking up is
necessarily left out of account, the superficial
or political aspect of it being alone here con-
sidered. ,

With these importaht eliminations, then,
the salient features of Christianity most likely
to arrest the attention of the supposed inquirer
may be surmised to be something like the
following :

(i.) He would be impressed with the vital-

Exoteric Christianity* 37

ity of a system which has succumbed neither
to external opposition nor to its own foUies
and crimes, though he would not fail at the
same time to note certain significant exceptions
to its success in the debased Christianity of
Africa, Arabia, and Syria, which disappeared
before the sweep of the more vigorous Islam.
Indeed, the struggle which was carried on
with fluctuating fortune for many centuries
between the low types of Christianity and the
virile creed and government of Mohammed
would not be the least interesting portion of
the survey, seeing that, as has happened in
India, China will have to accommodate both
competitors.

(2.) The next characteristic of Christianity
which would interest the inquirer would per-
haps be its undeviating progressiveness, its in-
tolerance,^ its love of power,^ and its tacit or
explicit assumption of infallibility.

1 A diplomatic Secretary of Pope Pius VII, declared that it
was " of the essence of the Catholic religion to be intolerant."

2 Not an ignoble desire. Ruskin says ^ propos of some
reflections of Dean Milman : *' You may observe, as an almost
unexceptional character in the ' sagacious wisdom ' of the Protes-
tant clerical mind, that it instinctively assumes the desire of

38 China and Christianity*

In the infancy of the movement, when the
Christians had as yet scarce ventured to show
themselves out of doors, they would be seen
assuming authority over their neighbours.
And the spirit of governing so runs through
the veins of the Christian body, even to the
small capillaries, that there is hardly a village
in Christendom but those of its inhabitants who
appropriate to themselves in a special sense the
name of Christian would be found in one way
or another trying to rule their neighbours.
Strife being so natural to man it would be
absurd to charge Christianity with all the wars
which have convulsed Christendom. It is
nevertheless true that religion imparts an
energy to quarrels, whether on the great or
the small stage, such as commoner motives
fail to do; and also that a large proportion of
the great wars of Christendom have been
avowedly religious in their origin and aim.
Nor does dismemberment quench the spirit of

power and place not only to be universal in Priesthood, but to
be always purely selfish in the ground of it. The idea that power
might possibly be desired for the sake of its benevolent use, so
far as I remember, does not once occur in the pages of any
ecclesiastical historian of recent date."

Exoteric Christianity* 39

the Church, for like the annelids which propa-
gate by fission, each offshoot reproduces in-
tegrally the attributes of the parent, and the
least of them is ready to stand up before the
world and defend, with whatever weapons ^
happen to be available, its claim to rule by
divine right over its neighbours. Every sect
is thus in its nature a potential persecutor,^
as indeed all religions are, and the long
struggles for "religious liberty" have usually
been for liberty to control others,^ fortunately
tempered in its action in modern days by the
superior efficiency of civil government. Per-
haps after all, this is no more than to say that
the Christian sects are full of life.

But what a paradoxical spirit it is ! Diffi-
dent in matters of daily experience ; puzzled

1 " Flog^ng, branding, and other agreeable forms of recrim-
ination were familiar enough as from Puritan to Quaker." —
Sattirday Review., 12th March, 1892.

2 " Even the reformers were as furious against contumacious
errors as they were loud in asserting the liberty of conscience.
. . . The Puritans in turn became persecutors when they got
the upper hand (1645)." — Justice Duncan, cited by Professor

SCHAFF.

3 " The cry for religious equality means the desire for irre-
ligious persecution." — Ibid., i6th January, 1892.

40 China and Christianity*

by the commonest phenomena ; unable to
foresee the issue of the simplest combination ;
failing wherever their judgment can be brought
to any practical test; many professors of Chris-
tianity nevertheless, in matters which eye hath
not seen nor ear heard, "most ignorant of
what they're most assured/' assume a position
of certainty so absolute as to warrant them in
employing all the forces at their command to
compel other men to their opinion. And
whenever they find it feasible they aspire to
attach the civil government itself to their par-
ticular service. Governments everywhere have
as much as they can do to guard their ma-
chinery from being used by the sects for pur-
poses of coercion, the instinct for which seems
to be irrepressible. Nor indeed could it be
logically otherwise so long as each sect believes
from its heart that it is really entrusted with
the oracles of God.

It need not surprise the student that in the
origin of Christianity no countenance was given
to pretensions to domination,^ while the con-

1 " There is nothing whatever in the doings and teachings of
our Lord which could be used to justify reUgious intolerance
and persecution." — Dr. Faber.

Exoteric Christianity* 41

trary principle was laid down as fundamental.
For no system, whether of religion or philos-
ophy, is able long to maintain its pristine
purity. All known religions have diverged
widely from the precepts and practices of their
founders, Islam perhaps the least of all. The
collective militant temper, however, is, fortu-
nately, not inconsistent with personal kindli-
ness, according to the law of human nature
before alluded to under which men are willing
to serve their corporations by means which
they would scruple to use for their personal
mterests. Hence the frequent observation that
certain persons are " better than their creed."
The rule applies also, conversely, to those
whose moral standards belong to an inferior
order, who seek their own advantage by means
which they would not resort to for the com-
mon good.

(3.)^ Growing naturally out of the preceding
conditions is the compact formation of " the
Church *' in its many varieties, whose solidarity
gives energy, and which is the immediate
cause of religious persecution, whether by
Christians or of Christians.

42 China and Christianity*

It might have been supposed a priori that
essential Christianity, the devotion of individ-
uals to the person of Christ (to take a short
but inadequate definition), needed no such
formal combination of men, and that vital re-
ligion would even be overlain to extinction by
the pomp and circumstance, to say nothing of
the coarser matters, inseparable from large or-
ganizations. But as a common loyalty to
Christ implies the brotherhood of man, of
which the various Christian societies may be
taken as separate nuclei, destined eventually
to coalesce, the principle of association must be
recognized as fundamental v/ith them. When
the followers of Christ began to call them-
selves " brethren '* the Church was already
formed ; and there it stands to-day, the grain
of seed grown into a wide-spreading tree with
many branches, and its roots struck deep into
the soil of humanity ; the visible embodiment
of Christianity.

(4.) A necessary development of the cohe-
sive quality of the Church was its self-govern-
ing tendency, which declared itself in its

Exoteric Christianity* 43

earliest days and has grown with the growth of
Christianity.

But a section of any national community
separated in aims, sympathy, and organization
from the rest must be a source of jealousy
even to strong governments, and an occasion
of alarm to weak ones. And even in cases
where the weakness of government may itself
be pleaded in justification of separate auton-
omies, which claim to fulfil, though in an
irregular manner, the functions of a national
government, that is the last plea likely to be
admitted by incapable rulers. The Roman
Emperors looked askance at all associations not
recognized by and subordinate to the public
law, and the Church of Rome, though itself
the sublimest example ever known of an im-
perium in imperio^ has never even to the pres-
ent day been able to extend its toleration to
the harmless mysteries of the Freemasons.
The Christian Church, indeed, has in all ages
been the most indigestible morsel in the form
of an empire within the empire that ever ex-
isted excepting where, as in Russia, it has been
incorporated whole into the scheme of State

44 China and Christianity*

government ; for to its vigour and self-asser-
tion, and its claim to be a law to itself it added
the supernatural sanction of hell-fire, to which
all who opposed were unhesitatingly consigned.
In the ages when the Christian Church was
still more than half pagan this was a formidable
weapon to wield against recalcitrant sovereigns.
The secular quarrel between the religious
and the civil power springs eternal out of the
single claim of ecclesiastics to obey and admin-
ister a higher law than the law of the land, a
claim by no means restricted to popes and
bishops. And a compact body governed by
such a theory of its own authority must be a
serious element in any political State, be it
Oriental or Occidental, and it ought to be no
matter for wonder that an Eastern government
should treat with some reserve the introduc-
tion into its territory of any organization em-
bodying such principles.

(5.) Although the tenets^ of Christianity
do not fall directly within the scope of po-

1 Some of the Chinese Emperors, however, notably K'ang-
Hsi and his persecuting son, assumed or affected a great interest
in the doctrines of Christianity.

Exoteric Christianity. 45

litical consideration, yet, inasmuch as the
species of moraHty which is inculcated among
the people must be coloured to some extent by
the doctrines which they are taught, and as the
morality of a nation can never be a matter of
indifference to any statesman,^ it follows that
even the dogmas of the Church may be by no
means devoid of interest for him. To China
in an especial sense would this observation
apply, seeing that the paternal rule of the em-
perors includes the functions of Pontiff and
public preceptor, which are continued down-
wards through every grade of the official hier-
archy. From this point of view the apology
attached to the toleration clauses in China's
foreign treaties cannot be said to be irrevelant,
however inadequate it may be.

Now, on this branch of the inquiry, the
bearing of ecclesiastical dogma, the drama of
Christianity will speak to the student in tones
varying greatly according to the ear with which
he listens to them. They will often appear
discordant, and not seldom contradictory. In

1 "The state can never be indifferent to the morals of the
people." — Prof. Schaff.

46 China and Christianity*

the manifold divisions of the Christian mass he
will be apt to be bewildered at first, but cer-
tain lines of cleavage will gradually reveal
themselves. For example, he will find the
Church in successive ages unequally divided
between the ethical principles of Faith and
Works, or personal and vicarious merit. On
one side, creeds and ceremonial ; on the other,
virtue and charity appear in the ascendant ; a
moral antithesis sufficiently pronounced. At
certain epochs, indeed, he may find official
Christianity practically divorced from morals
and wedded to the fiercer passions. Other
planes of cleavage would bring into view other
great opposed principles which are grounded
in human nature and have their full develop-
ment in the Christian Church. The Stoic
ideal of duty, without compensation, and the
Epicurean ideal of pleasure, be it present or
posthumous, may be seen dividing between
them, though unequally, the field of Christian
ethics much as they did that of the pre-Chris-
tian time in the West, and do now that of the
philosophic schools of China.^ As it has fallen

1 " The Stoics much resemble the Conf ucianists of China, and
the Epicureans are represented philosophically by a sect of

Exoteric Christianity* 47

to the lot of Christendom to ransack the
treasures of antiquity and to bring together
from every region of the earth the things
most worthy to be preserved, the student
will be able to recognize in its manifesta-
tions most of the time-worn psychological
ingredients, rearranged, like hewn stones from
ancient buildings fitted into modern edifices,
but with a distinction between the old and the
new which defies analysis ; such a difference
as that between the placid and reflective Lake
Leman and the impetuous Rhone, both formed
of the same waters. If Christianity repro-
duces the old philosophies it is with a new
inspiration, for Reason, the balancing power,
has yielded to Faith, the impelling power, —
which removes mountains. Nor is its efficacy
dependent on its formulas, since diverse forms
are seen to be equal in energy. It is a power
which lives through errors. It is not right-
eousness, though to the faithful it be counted
for righteousness. Through good report or
bad, therefore, the secret of the world that now

Taoists, and practically by the large majority of opulent people
in China." — Dr. Faber.

48 China and Christianity*

is, and probably of that which is immediately
to follow, rests obviously with the Christians,
which is a lesson well worth pondering by
political students whether in the East or the
West.

The direction of men's higher aspirations is
indeed no trivial matter ; whether the goal of
life be, on the one hand, a Heaven which the
refined depict as a "beatific vision," and the
unrefined think of under more material images,
or whether, on the other, it be duty to God
and man, to be done even if the Heavens
should fall.^ Important questions, but scarce
expressible in terms fit to serve practically for
every day use, and at any rate outside the
province of empirical statesmanship.

It is a source of chronic misunderstanding
between the Church and the World that Chris-
tianity seems at no period to have appealed to
political bodies by its spiritual, but by its ma-
terial, or fighting qualities. Governments and
peoples, as such, do not therefore come into

1 " To be urged by the desire of heaven to the performance of
virtue cannot bear comparison with doing good for its own sake."
Confucian polemic. — Dr. Edkins.

Exoteric Christianity^ 49

direct contact with those representatives of the
religion who, following the most closely in the
footsteps of their great Exemplar, are the most
gentle and patient, but with the trumpet
blowers of the force, described in the metaphor
of a Chinese Christian as the coarse rind which
hides the precious fruit. It is not Edward the
Confessor, but Defenders of the Faith Hke
Henry VIII. and Philip; not Fenelon or Pas-
cal, but Richelieu and Mazarin ; not St.
Francis, but Hildebrand and the Medici ; not
Thomas a Kempis, but Thomas a Beckett; not
Augustine, but Athanasius ; not Melanchthon
or Erasmus, but Luther and Calvin; not
George Wishart or George Herbert, but Knox
and Laud ; not Pedro de la Gasca and Las
Casas, but Pizarro and Cortez ; not Evelyn,
but Cromwell ; not Newman or Manning, but
Walsh and Croke ; or, to come nearer to our
Eastern home, not Sarthou, but Anzer; not
Crosset, but Griffith John that stand forth to
the world as the spokesmen and sponsors for
Christianity ; the impersonation, in short, of
the Church militant ; the hard buttresses of
Christianity, perhaps as necessary to its preser-
vation as the rough shell is to the mollusc.

50 China and Christianity*

(6.) A deduction at once practical and ob-
vious would be that which lies on the surface
of every newspaper, that Christianity is the
ruling factor in the polity of the Western na-
tions, and exercises a controlling influence on
all governments. A religious question would
be seen to constitute a chronic obstacle to the
assimilation of British rule in Ireland ; the
Church would be seen to hold the balance of
power in Germany, compelling the strongest
parties to reckon with it ; nor in France, Italy,
and Spain is there any political force of equal
energy. The happy circumstances of the
United States, which profit by the long experi-
ence of old Europe without being fettered by
its traditions, enable that government to main-
tain perfect equilibrium among all divisions of
Christianity, and enable the Churches to elim-
inate the grosser political elements from their
religious life ; while among no people is the
religious principle properly so called more
efficient as a sociaP force. Were it ever pos-
sible for one nation to copy another, there is

1 " Christianity is the most powerful factor in our society." —
Prof. S CHAFF.

Exoteric Christianity^ 51

perhaps no model which China would be s-afer
in following than the United States in her
dealing with Christian organization ; but the
peculiar difficulties of China, which are non-
existent in the Western Republic, render the
American example unavailing, except so far as
it may furnish the idea of religious toleration
on a sympathetic basis.

(7.) Perhaps the section of Christian history
which would come home most directly to a
Chinese politician — as it has in fact done —
would be the evolution of the protectorate of
the Christian inhabitants of non-Christian coun-
tries, against the civil government, by the forces
of Christian states. The necessity for repell-
ing Mohammedan invasion drove Christianity
into forming political and military leagues ; and
among the lasting results of the protracted
struggle for life between the two religions, the
assumed right of Christian States to interpose
between the Ottoman Government and its
Christian subjects, an assumption extended in
principle to all non-Christian countries, is one
which possesses for China a very practical sig-
nificance.

52 China and Christianity*

A Chinese who had the desire to follow up
the study of the natural history of Christi-
anity would find a wealth of inviting material
all round him in the libraries of the West.
But he might thus become familiar with the
great landmarks without discovering the fruit-
ful lands which lie between them — if the
metaphor may be stretched so far — for the
striking incidents of its outward career bear
much the same relation to essential Christianity
as the wars of a nation do to the common life
of the people. And as the secrets of nature
elude scientific research, so will the vital prin-
ciple of Christianity elude the scrutiny of any
objective critic.^ The mere political observer,

1 " The real history is underneath all this. The wandering
armies are, in the heart of them, only living hail, and thunder,
and fire along the ground. But the Suffering Life, the rooted
heart of native humanity, growing up in eternal gentleness, how-
ever wasted, forgotten, or spoiled, itself neither wasting, nor
wandering, nor slaying, but unconquerable by grief or death
became the seed ground of all love, that was to be bom in due
time; giving, then, to mortality, what hope, joy, or genius it
could receive ; and — if there be immortality — rendering out of
the grave to the Church her fostering Saints, and to Heaven her
helpful angels. Of this low-nestling, speechless, harmless, infi-
nitely submissive, infinitely serviceable order of being, no His-
torian ever takes the smallest notice, except when it is robbed,
or slain." — Ruskin.

Exoteric Christianity. 53

however, would be short-sighted who failed to
take account of the moral achievements of
Christianity in disciplining the lower and culti-
vating the higher tendencies of humanity, for
without attempting any hypothetical recon-
struction of the world as it might have been
without Christianity, the myriad meliorating
agencies which draw their life blood from its
exhaustless stream are patent to common view.
The alleviation of distress, the raising of the
dejected, the purification of domestic life, the
humanizing of man and the ennobling of
woman appeal to all open minds, and the
chief credit of these things it would not be
easy to deny to Christianity. It would never-
theless be an error, as before said, to suppose
that a non-Christian Oriental would be im-
pressed by them in the same way as a Christian
is, for wide as may be their divergences in
practice the theories of morals in East and
West are not so disparate but that such ob-
served virtues of the West as approved them-
selves to an Oriental he would be inclined to
refer to the teachings of his own sages.

54 China and Christianity^

V.

CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA.

Our supposititious Inquirer would naturally
be prompted as he went along to apply the
results of his observations of the West to the
circumstances of the Christian movement in
China. Nor could any exercise be more prac-
tical. For China is by no means inexperienced
in Western religions, and is not altogether de-
pendent on the knowledge of them derived
from abroad. She has indeed the unique
advantage of being able to judge them by the
comparative method, for besides having found
accommodation for the two incongruous for-
eign systems. Buddhism and Mohammedanism,
she is still struggling with the recrudescence of
Christianity, which had originally gained access
to the empire by the Western frontiers in the
seventh century, during the T'ang dynasty.
It is a fact which should interest students of
comparative religion, as well as propagandists.

Christianity in China. SS

that the Nestorian Christianity introduced at
that early period into China, and received with
favour, was, according to the Chinese view, grad-
ually superseded by Mohammedanism, even
as the corrupt Churches in the West had been,
but apparently without violence, Islam holding
its ground to the present day. The Christian
missions in Asia would be an attractive study,
were it only for the heroism with which their
record is enriched. Two features common to
all these efforts — whether in India, Persia,
Tibet, among the Khanates of Central Asia, or
in China — seem deserving of special note.
First, that the Christian missionaries were
nearly always welcomed and protected by the
rulers of the various states, by those even who
were already devoted to other religions. And
secondly, the missions, prosperous at the outset,
experienced violent reactions, as if their after-
taste was found bitter. It would be easy to
give local and partial explanations of this uni-
versal experience ; as the awakened jealousy
of the Lamas in Tibet, the reversal of the con-
ciliatory attitude of the first missionaries to-
wards native customs and philosophies in

S6 China and Christianity ♦

China, dynastic revolutions, and so forth.
But such particular reasons seem scarcely ade-
quate to explain the entire disappearance of
mediaeval Christianity and the subsequent
partition of Asia between Buddhism and
Mohammedanism. In China the Church
fared best, for there the Nestorians were still
vigorous enough, after six centuries, to be a
thorn in the side of the Catholic missionaries
who came to, and were well received at, the
Mongol Court in the reign of that model of
religious toleration, Kublai, who honoured
equally the four prophets, Jesus Christ, Mo-
hammed, Moses, and Buddha.-^ From the
accession of the Ming dynasty, however, com-
munication with the West being cut off, the
traces of Christianity were so completely lost
that there were none either to welcome or
oppose the apostles who 250 years later made
their way to China round the Cape of Storms,
and discovered that it was Cathay.

1 " In this empire there are men of all nations under the sun
and monks of all sects ; and as every one is permitted to live in
whatever belief he pleases, the opinion or rather the error, being
upheld that each one may effect his salvation in his own religion,
we are enabled to preach in perfect liberty and security."
Letter of Andre de Per ouse from Kai Tong, IJ26. — Hue.

Christianity in China* 57

The entrance of the Itahan missionaries into
the empire and the capital towards the end of
the 1 6th century is described by the Chinese
— and it is their version we are concerned
with — as crafty and insidious. The mission-
aries, indeed, gave much the same account of
themselves, for they, by the most admirable
perseverance under almost insuperable difficul-
ties, contrived to enter the service of the Em-
perors while remaining strictly under the orders
of the Propaganda. They were from the first
opposed by Censors and high officers, but were
supported by the reigning Emperor of the
Ming dynasty (Wan Li, 1573), their passport
to the imperial favour being their astronomical
science, which enabled them to correct the cal-
endar, a task on which Hindu Buddhists had
been similarly employed seven centuries before,
and which seems still to have continued to
baffle the Astronomical Board of Peking.
Matteo Ricci, the first who gained entrance to
the Capital, had already been some years in
the Southern provinces, and there were already
more or less prosperous missions at Nanking
and several other places, described by the

58 China and Christianity*

missionaries as " four light-houses " diffusing
the truth over the Chinese empire. Though
constantly denounced by Ministers and Cen-
sors they maintained their ground in the prov-
inces until the Emperor, at last yielding to
the official pressure, issued an order for them
to withdraw, which the missionaries were very
dilatory in obeying, and for a time they suffered
grievously in the provinces. In the mean-
while the religion had been spreading rapidly
throughout the empire, and counted among
its adherents men of rank and learning.
Adam Schaal, who had succeeded Matteo Ricci
in Peking as mathematician in the last years
of the Ming, and v/as impressed into taking
part in the military operations which ended in
its overthrow, was prompt to pay his court to
the Emperor Shun-Chih, the first of the Ta
Ts'ing dynasty, and he and his comrade Ver-
biest were by that monarch appointed Presi-
dent and Vice-president of the Astronomical
Board.

The position of these missionaries and their
followers was incessantly attacked by Chinese
officials, but during the long reign of K'ang

Christianity in Qiina^ 59

Hsi (1662-1723) they were still upheld by the
Emperor, who highly valued their scientific
services. But the opening of churches in the
provinces had been definitely forbidden about
1670, though the missionaries in the imperial
service were still allowed to hold religious
worship in the capital, but for themselves alone,
the propaganda being interdicted. Both re-
strictions were, however, evaded, the imperial
edicts fell into desuetude, and the propaganda
continued active in the Southern provinces.
The official pressure on the Emperor was
strenuously renewed, and in the 56th year of
his reign (17 17) he was at last prevailed on to
revive the lapsed edict of 1670 and decree
the expulsion of all the foreigners, within six
months, due precautions being taken, however,
to protect them on their long journeys from
the districts in which they had settled to the
port of embarkation. Six years later the expul-
sion had still not been effected, and the Vice-
roy of Canton, Kung, then memorialized the
successor of K'ang Hsi near the beginning of
1725 to the effect that the numbers of the
foreigners were too great to be disposed of in

6o China and Christianity^

such a summary fashion, for the wharf at Macao
was too narrow and the available ships too few !
He therefore petitioned that they should have
leave to reside in Canton in their own estab-
lishment, but not to teach their doctrines ;
and that the Chinese who had joined that sect
should be made to abandon it. The year after,
the same viceroy memorialized the Throne that
foreigners had been resident in Macao for 200
years, that their numbers had increased to
over 3,000, and he prayed His Majesty Yung-
cheng to issue an edict limiting the numbers
and ordering that the supernumeraries should
be made to leave the country, — to which the
Emperor assented.

Nevertheless, during the reign of K'ien-
Lung (173 6-1 796) the missionaries continued
their proselytizing efforts in the northern and
western provinces, though from the central
provinces of Hunan, Hupei, and Kiangsi they
had been hunted out and expelled. The Em-
peror was constrained to issue a forcible edict
ordering the searching out and prohibiting of
the sect, but always, like his predecessors, in-
clined to clemency, K'ien Lung in the fiftieth

Christianity in China^ 6i

year of his age (1785) issued another edict
formally and in set terms confirming the pre-
vious one, which had again been secretly vio-
lated by the " preaching criminals, whose only
purpose was to propagate their doctrines, and
in no other way did they offend against the
law." Yet as they were ignorant of the law
of the empire he had pity on their sufferings
in prison, and would set them at liberty and
allow them to live in their own estabhshment
in the capital.

Attempts were made in 1794 by Lord Ma-
cartney, who was well received by K^en Lung,
and again in 1 8 1 6 by Lord Amherst, who was
not received by Kia K^ing because he refused
the k^ou-fou which he pretended was due to
the "Lord of Heaven " alone, to obtain more
favourable consideration for foreigners. " From
that time," says the narrative we have been
following, " began the dissatisfaction."

The Christians continued to violate the law,
evangelists went out secretly into every prov-
ince, and evil people under cover of their name
accomplished their evil purposes. The risings
during the Ming, and in the reigns of K'ien-

6i China and Christianity*

Lung, and Kia-K4ng of the present dynasty-
are set down to the White Lily and other cor-
rupt sects, which are generally associated in
the public mind with the Christians.

Then, to crown all, the English forced them-
selves into China, bringing their "Jesus books,"
scattering them among the people, who have
ever since been carrying on their wickedness
under this cover. The English treaty of Nan-
king in 1842 was followed by a French treaty
in 1844, which conceded protection to mis-
sionaries and other foreigners at the open ports,
but did not annul the prohibition against for-
eigners teaching in the interior ; and when the
French came a second time in 1846 to Canton
and urged the removal of the proscription, the
Emperor Tao-Kwang decreed that at the ports
they might erect Churches and the natives
might there receive instruction, " but they were
not to beguile women into vile practices nor
by deceit take out the eyes of sick persons."

After another war the treaties extorted from
China in 1858-60 granted a more general pro-
tection to evangelists and their converts in the
interior of the country, and provided more-

Christianity in China^ 6^

over for the restitution to the French Minister
of all the buildings and lands, the property of
the missions, which had been confiscated dur-
ing the persecutions. After these treaties, the
Chinese followers of the missionaries, trusting
in the foreigners for protection, insulted the
soldiers and people, and disregarded the offi-
cials, which provoked a decree from the Em-
peror, in which he says : " It appears from the
statement in the French treaty that the sect
exhort men to righteousness ; this has already
been published abroad. Now, recently in every
province the followers of this sect and their
opponents are constantly quarrelling and fight-
ing. Hereafter let the local magistrates in
every province diligently examine into the
origin of these troubles and use authority to
preserve the peace. If the Christians can quiet
their own, let them as a body be fully pro-
tected. But if any, relying upon his sect, does
evil and violates the law, then the magistrates
shall certainly, according to law, try and punish
his crime."

This cursory view of the advent of Christi-
anity into China is taken from a recent collec-

64 China and Christianity*

tion of carefully edited Chinese State papers
called King-sz-wen, sometimes known as the
" Blue Books '' a section of which, translated
by Rev. D. L. Anderson, appears in the Chi-
nese Recorder y 1891. It presents the foreign
religion as seen with Chinese eyes, and consid-
ering the hostile feeling of the editor, the lan-
guage of this historical section is singularly
moderate in tone, though other parts of the
compilation contain grossly offensive matter.
As a narrative of the progress of Christian
missions it is bald, and defective even in histor-
ical symmetry. The famous quarrels between
the different orders of missionaries, which on
their own showing were more ruinous to their
cause than the hostility of the Chinese, their
reference of their disputes on abstruse theologi-
cal questions to the Emperor, and their ap-
peals to Rome on matters concerning Chinese
customs and doctrines, which are made much
of by foreign critics, are passed over in silence
by this official Chinese editor, although they
would apparently have furnished material use-
ful for his argument. And as a matter of
course the heroism of the Chinese as well as

Christianity in China^ 65

foreign martyrs to the faith, the reports of
which drew from Pius VII. the exclamation:
"It is like a passage from the annals of the
primitive Church ! " is entirely ignored in
these publications. Necessarily, also, the hid-
den source of the Christians' fortitude and the
motive energy of their action were blank mys-
teries to those whose sympathies were with the
persecutors, and not with their victims. Nei-
ther have the devoted and disinterested lives
of the early missionaries such as Ricci and
Verbiest, which have drawn tributes of the
warmest admiration from candid Protestant
writers, made any noticeable impression on the
Chinese official world. That side of the ques-
tion, however, has received such full attention
from the missionary writers themselves, almost
to the entire exclusion of the Chinese official
and popular view of their case, that it would be
superfluous to reproduce here any portions of
their vivid descriptions. It is the pure Chi-
nese view of the mission question, with all its
defects and partialities, with which we are now
particularly concerned.

The opposition to the entrance of Christian-

66 China and Christianity^

ity is, by the above narrative, shown to have
been unwavering on the part of responsible
officials, who laboriously reasoned against it as
they also have never ceased to do against
Buddhism, on general as well as on doctrinal
grounds. To such attacks the missionaries
laid themselves open, more, perhaps, than was
absolutely necessary, for as if the Christian
dogmas proper did not present a large enough
mark for assailants, they cumbered their ship, as
the Buddhists had done theirs, with a deck-
load of perishable cosmogony, from which the
Church has never been able quite to disentan-
gle itself. The scholars and officials dwelt
forcibly also on the political danger of Chris-
tianity. But a succession of emperors of gen-
tle disposition who, suspecting no evil, treated
them in a hospitable manner, allowed the mis-
sionaries to gain a footing in the Palace under
the cover of teaching science, while all the
time " these foreigners had their minds fixed
on other unlawful things." And referring to
the reparation insisted on by France in 1858
for the death of Father Chapdelaine, the re-
porter says : " From that time the disciples of

Christianity in China^ 67

the missionaries, though Chinese, have be-
come very bold, openly relying upon the
foreign Consuls to protect them, at the same
time looking with contempt upon their own
officials." ^ He also attributes various ris-
ings in the country in former times to the in-
fluence of divers sects, and says : " All these
troubles came about through the instrumen-
tality of unemployed evil men among our
people. These made use of those worship-
ping assemblies to collect money, and a
crowd having gathered, they plotted rebellion.
... So from the days of Kai-K'ing to the
present, seditious plottings have been carried
out in every province. . . . Thus in all the
provinces there was no seditious sect that
did not pretend themselves to be a worship-
ping body."

These prohibitions of the teaching of Chris-

1 " The native priests are said to be quite overbearing in
claiming access to the mandarins. Nor has this been entirely-
confined to the Roman Catholics, but native preachers con-
nected with Protestant Missions are also charged with demand-
ing admission into the presence of the local officials and
presuming on their connection with foreigners to claim civil privi-
leges."—Rev, R. H. Graves, Recorder, 1884. See also Rev,
J. Ross, in Recorder, August, 1892.

68 China and Christianity*

tianity, were extorted from the Emperors, evi-
dently against their better feeling, and, if one or
two short and sharp persecutions prompted by
personal pique be excepted, required nearly
loo years to get promulgated and 60 years
more to be put in full force, so deliberate are
the movements of the Chinese governing ma-
chine. They were partially rescinded by the
Treaties of 1842-4, and finally by those of
1858, both of which were imposed on China
by force of arms. But a military conqueror
has no power over opinion, and it is certain
that the spirit which dictated the continuous
remonstrances of the high officials of the em-
pire for two hundred years was in no way
changed because a Minister, trembling for his
head, signed the parchment placed before him
by the plenipotentiary of a victorious invader.
Neither was the feeling against Christianity
likely to be soothed because the propaganda,
against which they had waged unceasing war, was
forced thus suddenly upon the Chinese. These
circumstances render it dangerous for foreign
powers to permit the slightest relaxation of
treaty observance on the part of the Chinese.

Qiristianity in China^ 69

But It would be unwise at the same time not
to take account of the actual predicament in
which their treaty obligations have placed that
people.

70 China and Christianity^

VI.

THE SOURCES OF CHINESE OPPOSITION.

It were much to the purpose to extract, if
possible, from the record of the various
Chinese persecutions the special features in
Christianity which render it so obnoxious to
the Chinese, but such an inquiry is somewhat
hindered by the reticence of both sides. The
missionaries* reports have been edited as yet
only in fragments, and their case has to be
largely inferred from the course of events.
And as to the Chinese, it is never safe to
accept too literally their statements because of
their constitutional habit of avoiding on all
questions a direct issue, and of economizing
truth by putting forward frivolous and irrele-
vant arguments rather than meet a case squarely
on its merits. The construction of the Chinese
mental apparatus, or the result of their social
education, seems to bar the direct ingress and
egress of thought, which consequently has to

The Sources of Chinese Opposition. 71

be filtered through a labyrinth of convolutions
which arrest the solid particles and allow only
the more volatile a free passage. The real
conviction of a Chinese is scarcely to be
fathomed by his own brother, from whom
something is always held back, and is to be
ascertained by acts and inferences rather than
by direct affirmation, even on solemn occasions.
The obiter dicta of Chinese statesmen would,
if they could be gathered up and compared, be
a safer key to the secrets of their mind than
the more conscious mintage of their brain.
Unless this canon of interpretation be applied
to Chinese public documents, serious errors
will be unavoidable.

From the favour with which, notwithstand-
ing fierce academical and religious opposition
sustained through many centuries. Buddhism
was received by the government, the hospital-
ity accorded to the Nestorians and other West-
ern sects, and the tolerance subsequently ex-
tended to the Mohammedans, it may be
inferred that the particular species of antagon-
ism which has been evoked by modern Chris-
tianity was not felt towards those earlier

72 China and Christianity.

religious importations. Buddhism no doubt
captivated the popular mind in China and
Japan by supplying the great void left by the
teachings of the sages — the promise of a future
life, and a scheme of retribution ; paradise, and
remission of sins. The entrance of Moham-
medanism may have been made easy by the
purity of its deism and simplicity of ritual
offering few points of attack. Nevertheless
these two religions were not less subversive of
the indigenous theocracy of China and her
traditional superstitions than is Christianity
itself, and their comparative immunity from
persecution therefore goes towards establishing
the fact that neither a new religion, as .such,
nor its foreign origin, would be sufficient of
itself to arouse the antagonism with which, in
modern times. Christian doctrine has been met
in China. The question is thus narrowed
down to such special characteristics or external
circumstances as may differentiate Christianity
from those other religious systems, and perhaps
modern Christianity from its older forms.

In the memorials of censors and statesmen
in the reigns of K'ang-Hsi and of Wan Li of

The Sources of Chinese Opposition. 73

the Ming dynasty, it is not difficult to trace
the natural and inevitable jealousy of officials
who saw strangers, however meritorious, pro-
moted over their heads to honourable positions
in the imperial service. The case was not
altogether unlike that of the Hebrew captives
at the Babylonish Court, whose elevation by
successive Kings excited the envy of " the
presidents and satraps," who, diligently seeking
to compass the fall of the foreigners, were
driven to confess : " We shall not find any
occasion against this Daniel except we find it
against him concerning the law of his God."
And it is worth noting here that one of the
apologists of Buddhism in the T'ang dynasty,
Liu Tsing-yiian, in a tract translated by Mr.
Giles, lays stress on this, that " Buddhism
admits no envious rivalry for place or power."
One prominent assailant came into direct
personal conflict with the foreign missionaries,
about A.D. l66^, who succeeded in supplant-
ing Schaal and Verbiest for a time in the presi-
dency of the Astronomical Board, and was in
turn dislodged by them, disgraced and banished
for detected errors in astronomical calculations.

74 Qiina and Christianity*

From such a man, therefore, in the bitterness
of his defeat, we might expect to hear the
worst that could be said against the foreign mis-
sionaries, put in the form most likely to impress
the Emperor and the leaders of opinion. Yang
Kwang-sien made a direct attack on their reli-
gion. Not in the capital only, but " through-
out the thirteen provinces '' their emissaries
had spread, and he says : " What is it they
have in mind to accomplish ? " In the books
which he wrote against the missionaries, assail-
ing with admirable energy their theological
tenets, and pointing out the social disinte-
gration which the system would work, Yang
uttered warnings of the sinister designs of the
propagators of these corrupt doctrines, and
appealed to posterity to attest the truth of his
predictions. He called loudly for the expulsion
of the foreigners on various technical grounds
also : " From ancient times to the present," he
says, " has any one every crossed our frontier
who has not been sent in by his State to bring
tribute ? Or did any of the subject States'
Ambassadors ever come with tribute who not
only did not return to his own country him-

The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 75

self, but also called hither fellows of his own
sort to assist in corrupting our people ? " But
his chief argument was based on the disasters
which Christianity was sure to bring upon the
State : " After a while, when trouble comes,
will these converts contend against their fathers
and brothers, or will they help them ? . . .
According to my humble judgment it is
better that we should be without a good
calendar than that we should have foreign-
ers among us. . . . 1 fear that if we have
foreigners among us they will, by scatter-
ing their gold, gather up the hearts of the
people of our empire like as if one should carry
fire into a pile of straw fuel, and misfortune
will come speedily." In a word, the effect of
the doctrine, according to Yang, was to sub-
vert the relation of father and son, prince and
people, or, as certain earlier conservatives in
another part of the world expressed it, to " turn
the world upside down.*' Conscious that his
attacks would be set down to interested motives,
he declared he would gladly be misconstrued
by his contemporaries if only he could escape
being honoured by posterity as a true prophet

76 China and Christianity.

of China's distress. From the prominence
given to his anti-Christian writings after a lapse
of 200 years, it would appear that posterity
really gives Yang the credit which he professed
himself so anxious to avoid.

The course of the anti-Christian agitation in
China has been a consistent and unbroken one,
gathering strength as the religion, or its pro-
fessors, became better known, and reaching its
culmination in our own day — though re-
pressed in overt action — under the double
stimulus of the spread of the sects, and of the
foreign treaties which protect them. From first
to last, with perhaps one exception, the Em-
perors have been more liberal or less appre-
hensive of danger than their Ministers, and
seemed always well pleased to command the
skilled service of the missionaries on easy
terms. The opposition, although fed from
divers sources, such as personal jealousy, phil-
osophical antipathy and religious sentiment,
seems to have centred itself on two principal
points : the dread of the political usurpation
and the popular aversion. For it was natural
that the people should feel at least a prelim-

The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 77

inary repugnance to a sect which contravened
old customs, which kept aloof from local cele-
brations, which held quasi-secret meetings, and
aroused distrust by the alleged practice of arts
incomprehensible to the common people, and
associated with witchcraft even by the educated
classes.

The opposition of religionists as such, e,g,,
the Buddhist or Taoist sects, seems never to
have been very formidable ; and the implied
subversion of the root religion of the State —
the worship of the True God by the Emperor
— failed even to arouse the anger of the em-
perors themselves, the parties it might be sup-
posed most directly concerned in the mainte-
nance of the theocratic status.

Williams quotes, and paraphrases, the prin-
cipal causes of trouble between the converts
and their countrymen, as recorded by Mon-
seigneur Saint-Martin, who was Vicar- Apostolic
of Sechuan from 1772 to 1784: —

First. Christians are frequently confounded
with the members of the Triad Society, or of
the White Lily sect, both by their enemies

7 8 China and Christianity.

and by persons belonging to those associa-
tions.

Second. The Christians refuse to contrib-
ute to the erection or repair of temples, etc.

Third. Betrothals are almost indissoluble
in China ; and whenever the Christians refuse
to ratify them by proceeding to a marriage
already commenced, they are regarded as law-
breakers and treated as such.

Fourth. All communications with Euro-
peans being interdicted, the magistrates seek
diligently for every evidence of their existence
in the country, by searching for the objects
used in worship, as crosses, breviaries, etc.

Fifth. The little respect the converts have
for their ancestors.

Sixth. The Converts are obliged to take
down the ancestral tablets in order to put up
those of their own religion, and they are seldom
forgiven for this.

Seventh. The indiscreet zeal of neophytes
in breaking the idols or insulting the objects
of public worship, is one of the commonest
causes of persecution.

The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 79

Eighth. Disputes between the missionaries
themselves.

It is possible that the most constant source
of opposition to the Christian propaganda is
one that is never explicitly referred to in speech
or writing, the apprehension of loss of influ-
ence by the whole lettered and official classes.
In the patriarchal and theocratic system under
which the empire is administered, the magis-
trates of all ranks in their official capacity, and
the scholars as amateurs, not only rule but
aspire to regulate the people in their various
concerns, and as they must know by instinct
that the success of the propaganda would in-
volve the solution of their traditional tenure
of influence, their implacable hostility to Chris-
tianity may be inferred without reference to its
merits as a religion. And when to this provo-
cation is added the deposition of the whole
classical lore of China to a subordinate place —
which is one of the commonest of the Chris-
tian demands — the exasperation of the classes
which live in that literature needs no further
explanation. A parallel might be imagined if

8o China and Christianity.

a foreign propaganda in Great Britain were to
insist, as a preliminary step, on the dethrone-
ment of the Bible and Shakespeare from their
supreme position as English classics. It is
right to say, however, that many, perhaps most,
of the modern missionaries are finding an hon-
ourable place in their school curricula for the
reading of Confucian classics.^

Many of the expressions of the popular
feeling against Christianity in China resemble
those which were current in the regions where
the religion first spread. The affronts offered
to the national gods, abstention from public
ceremonies, the scandals of promiscuous meet-
ings, the resort to magical arts, the scooping
out of eyes, and other abominations read like
charges copied by the Chinese from the West-
ern pagans, their similarity going some way

^ "The fundamental truth of Confucianism, that man should
strive to live in harmony with the will of Heaven, lies at the
basis of all true religion." — Rev. F. L. Hawks Pott, Chinese
Recorder^ July» 1892.

" I have found the classics of incomparable value, both in
convicting of sin, in the inculcation of duty, in upsetting idolatry,
and in establishing our Christian ideas regarding the omnipres-
ence, the almighty power, and the universal care of the one
living God." — Rev. J. Ross, Chinese Recorder, August, 1892.

The Sources of Chinese Opposition. 8i

towards corroborating the bona fides of both.
Behefs and sentiments, however irrational, which
thus well up spontaneously at such distant
periods of time and among peoples so unknown
to each other, are evidently too firmly planted
in human nature to be eradicated either by
argument or rougher measures. To the pres-
ent day there are communities in Europe who
believe in abominations being practised by
Jews on Christian children, and the cruelties
to which that persecuted race have been sub-
jected in every country where they have settled
constitute a standing proof of the endurance of
racial and religious prejudice. Gradually, under
the solvent influences of time and enlighten-
ment, such notions will doubtless die the slow
death of superstitions, but the strong hand
indiscreetly applied to them is apt to harden
prejudices which will yield only to invincible
forbearance.^

^ Of course the true root of the aversion lies deeper than all
that. Dr. Faber points at it {Messenger, July, 1892) : " The
Chinese have learned from the Roman Catholics and from their
hundred years of struggle against Christianity to fully reaUze
that the propagation of this religion concerns nothing short of
the very existence of the Chinese pecteliar theory of life in its en-

82 China and Christianity*

The practical statesman, on either side, will
therefore most profitably concentrate his atten-
tion on the one point of the assumption of
political power — whether intended or not
intended — by the teachers and converts to
Christianity, which is the most obvious source
of anxiety to the Chinese government.-^

There is not, of course, an individual mis-
sionary, nor any one of the sects into which the
force is divided, who would not warmly repu-
diate any design of interference with the inter-
nal administration, and in most cases with the
purest sincerity. But protestations have, un-
fortunately, no influence whatever on the
course of events, for it is not by the malice
prepense of individuals that dangers to the
State are set up, but by the natural evolution of

tirety^ Perhaps the word " theory " even puts too formal a
limitation on the Chinese feeling, for something more vital and
more diffusive than a mere " theory of life " seems required to
account for such infinite variety and intensity of expression, and
to prompt such spontaneous action, where the propagation of
Christianity is concerned.

1 " As far as religion is concerned the Chinese are not only
reasonable, but extremely tolerant, till the professed religion as-
sume, or is believed to assume, a political aspect." — Rev. J.
Ross, Chinese Recorder, August, 1892.

The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 83

their principles. Not that in this connection
individuals are always free from blame, for
many could be named who really have arro-
gated authority, given themselves official rank,
or who have at least exacted the deference and
assumed the state belonging to such rank,^
who have in some cases even levied military
forces, — to be used in aid of law and order,
be it admitted, — and some who have dabbled
in palace intrigues of a worldly character. And
although hundreds more could be pointed out
who bear themselves with perfect humility
among their neighbours, their influence, within
the purview of state government, is almost un-
appreciable. It has been a long standing

1 The often quoted observation of Father Ripa, quoted because
of its obvious candour, is to the following effect :

" If our European missionaries in China would conduct them-
selves with less ostentation and accommodate their manners to
persons of aU ranks and conditions, the number of converts
would be immensely increased, for the Chinese possess excellent
natural abilities, and are both prudent and docile. But they have
adopted the lofty and pompous mannei known in China by the
appellation of ' Ti-mien.' Their garments are made of the
richest materials ; they go nowhere on foot, but always in sedans,
on horseback, or in boats, and with numerous attendants follow-
ing them. With a few honourable exceptions, all the mission-
aries live in this manner."

84 China and Christianity*

grievance of the government that the foreign
priest trains his flock to look to him for protec-
tion instead of to the constituted authorities.

The simple fact of any considerable number
of the inhabitants separating themselves from
the general population must be a source of un-
easiness to rulers, and the whole stream of offi-
cial records proves that the secret sects are the
chronic bugbear of the government of China.
Christianity is not only reckoned as one of the
sectSj but it is the most difficult to manage be-
cause the autonomy to which it tacitly aspires
is always, in these days, liable to be backed by
foreign force. Hence the terror with which
some, and the aversion with which others, of
the local officials regard communities of Chris-
tians.

In Protestant journals the question is some-
times discussed whether, and how far, it is judi-
cious for the foreign missionaries to plead the
cause of their converts before local magistrates
in cases where the secular interests of the
Christians are involved ; and it is assumed that
the native converts sometimes abuse the advan-
tage they derive from the support of their for-

The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 85

eign pastors with " the Consul *' behind them,
to claim privileges which on their merits as
mere Chinese they •would not dare to do.-^
Whatever conclusion may be eventually ar-
rived at in these literary discussions, the fact of
the subject being so treated at all goes far to
justify the whole contention of the Govern-
ment. In many parts of the country clan
fights are provoked by the Christians presum-
ing on their missionary protection. The very
latest persecution, that in Pakow, in Mongo-

1 " A missionary receives a report from one of his Church
members that his heathen neighbour is persecuting him. He ap-
plies to the mandarin, who refuses to see him. Then he goes to
his Consul. His Consul reluctantly refers it to the higher Chi-
nese authorities. They send down a win shu ordering the local
mandarin to stop persecution. The native convert has never ap-
pealed on his own account to the mandarin. On examination it
may or may not turn out a bogus concern altogether. Ten to
one it is an insignificant affair. , . . But the remoter con-
sequences are not insignificant. The Christian has been taught
to lean upon a protection he is not entitled to ; the heathen feels
that he is being tyrannised over by the hated foreigner, who, ac-
cording to his notions, has no business to be in the country. The
mandarin has been snubbed for no fault of his own ; the higher
officials feel that in admitting the missionary they pulled down a
house over their heads, and the Consul wishes the missionary
and his peddling concerns far enough." — Rev. G. T. Candlin,
in Manchester Guardian^ 21st December, 1891.

86 China and Christianity*

lia, in November last, was but the eruption of
one of those smouldering feuds. The Chris-
tians there being numerous' and compact had in-
curred the enmity of their heathen neighbours,
particularly of the 'Tsai-Ii, or Abstinence Sect,
to whom, it is said, they gave much provoca-
tion. In law suits, the magistrate, intimidated
by the presence of the foreign priest, and ap-
prehensive of censure from Peking if he should
furnish any pretext to the foreigner to appeal
to his Minister, favoured the Christian liti-
gants so openly as to excite mutiny in the
neighbourhood, which resulted in a massacre
of the Christians. If the records of the em-
pire were fully searched, such cases, though
not all so grave, would probably be found
common enough to account for a general re-
sentment against a perennial source of trouble
and personal risk to the officials throughout
the country.

Such military exploits as those of Mon-
seigneur Faure in Kueichow, and Monseigneur
Delaplace in Chekiang, although serving the
cause of the government in a crisis that threat-
ened danger to its existence, could not but open

The Sources of Chinese Opposition* 87

the eyes of Chinese statesmen to possibil-
ities of a different kind. These two prelates
were loyal men, of whom one died in Kwei-fu
in 1 871, and the other lived to enjoy the con-
fidence of the Chinese government as Vicar-
Apostolic in Peking. But who would stand
sponsor for their successors, who in some simi-
lar emergency might wield similar power, but
employ it to a different end? Indeed, certain
defiant expressions of Monseigneur Deflesche
in Sechuan, during the troubles there about
1870, intimated to the French Government
that the Church in that province had confi-
dence in its own means of self-protection. A
nation would hardly be in a satisfactory posi-
tion which was liable to have to treat with an
alien in its midst at the head of troops of his
own raising, whether in the capacity — so easily
interchangeable — of ally or enemy. Her ex-
perience of her Mohammedan subjects would
alone render China suspicious and irritable in
face of separate communities in either guise.
For though in that religion itself there is
nothing inimical to the government any more
than there is in Christianity, yet the circum-

88 China and Christianity^

stance of a numerous body of co-religionists
thrown together by their alienation from the
people round them is a skeleton always in the
cupboard. The nucleated body must ever be
harder than the mass in which it is imbedded,
as was illustrated with costly vividness in the
two great Mohammedan rebellions in Yiiman
and in Kashgar, which arose and were quelled
within the present generation, after sacrifices
which taxed the resources of the empire to the
uttermost.

Her standing warfare with the sects and
secret societies, therefore ; the many insurrec-
tions these have raised in the past ; the devas-
tations of Taipings, Panthays, and Dunganis,
and the waste of life and property incidental to
their overthrow ; would seem to justify the
fears of China in regard to the advance of any
foreign religion ; and of all the sects and soci-
eties which have yet appeared Christianity is
certainly not the one that has in general
proved to be the most docile. If, indeed, the
government officials were willing, or were in a
position, to observe the gentler fruits of Chris-
tian teaching, their political apprehensions

The Sources of Chinese Opposition. 89

might be somewhat allayed; for they would
see in many rural villages throughout the
country the leaven of the new faith working its
way in the silent manner in which the eternal
forces always do work ; and they would see, if
they had eyes for such things, evidences of
ameHoration in the life of the people, cleanli-
ness and kindliness spreading, intelligence
awakened, the desire for knowledge implanted,
reading taking the place of gambling in the
cottages, and the conditions of existence sweet-
ened, brightened, and elevated for many a
poor family. Equally in Catholic and Protes-
tant mission stations might such peaceful
progress be witnessed, not as the result of
either Catholic or Protestant polemics, or of
exciting literature, but of the personal magnet-
ism of men and women whose lives reflect the
light of love. Unfortunately, however, but
inevitably, the features of Christianity which
challenge the attention of the outer world, and
especially of rulers, do not belong to that class,
but to those which are associated with aggres-
siveness. It is for such phases of the religion
alone that state regulations are required, just

90 China and Christianity ♦

as the ordinary laws of a country have the ap-
pearance of ignoring its orderly citizens and are
ostensibly concerned only with the minority
who violate the social order.

Nor is it reasonable to expect the Chinese
government to be more Christian than the
Christians themselves ; and whatever may be
the intrinsic merits of the religion as expressed
in the lives of saints and the death of martyrs,
the most eloquent apology could not speak to
a heathen government in such cogent language
as the acts of the representatives of Christian
governments with whom it has daily inter-
course. The Chinese may be lacking in spir-
itual perception, but they cannot be denied the
quality of common shrewdness, which enables
them to take a fairly correct gauge of the
foreigners of all classes with whom they come
in contact, and of their motives of action.
What, then, are they to think of the sacred-
ness of a religion of which they see foreign
powers competing for the championship merely
in order that they may make political capital
out of it to vex China ; or, baser still, in order
that they may make common merchandise of
the Christian Church ?

The Sources of Chinese Opposition. 91

It seems superfluous again to repeat, that
China has not alone, indeed scarcely at all, to
weigh the inner character of Christianity ; but
to contemplate the Church in alliance with
powerful nations who, whether treating religious
affairs as ancillary to their own ambitions, or
being goaded by the Church to action against
their will, in either case make her cause their
own. China has had memorable experience of
such, to her, ill-omened aUiances. It was the
death of a Catholic priest, whose residence in
the interior at the time was illegal, that fur-
nished Napoleon III. the pretext for invading
China and sacking the Palace. It was alleged
persecutions in Cochin-China that furnished,
at the same convenient juncture, the pretext to
France to take possession of that territory, and
was the not very remote cause of the Tong-
king war which lately cost China 60 million
taels, besides the loss of the protectorate. Thus
the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of
foreign colonial empire, of whose aggrandize-
ment China has had to pay the cost.

The experience of China, so far as it has yet
gone, therefore, is not out of keeping with the

92 China and Christianity ♦

record of Christianity elsewhere. And traits
now exhibited in China, which are found to
correspond with those observed in remote
times and places, may not unfairly be taken
as practically inseparable from the only forms
of Christianity which have been able to assert
themselves amid the strife of nations, however
much these characters may seem at variance
with the principles enunciated by its Founder.

The Taiping Rebellion* 93

vir

THE TAIPING REBELLION.

Beyond these general and more or less cal-
culable risks connected with Christianity, China
has had a special and perhaps unique experi-
ence of an incalculable danger of the most seri-
ous character, which calls for some notice here.
The Taiping rebellion, which wasted the richest
provinces of the empire during a space of
fifteen years (reducing populous cities to rub-
bish heaps and fertile lands to deserts), and
which has been estimated by some to have re-
duced the population one way and another by
50 million souls, or according to Dr. Wells
Williams, 20 millions, was the direct outcome
of Christian teaching. Dr. Edkins calls it
" the Christian insurrection." Few nations
have had to endure the like, and a State that
has recently passed through such a life-and-
death struggle may be pardoned a little cool-

94 China and Christianity.

ness towards the propagation of the doctrines
with which the movement was associated.

The Protestant missionaries then in China
were elated at the outburst of the great Rebel-
Hon, not because they cherished enmity to the
government which apparently was about to be
overthrown, but because of the demonstrated
success of their teaching. It was not their
fault that the country was being desolated ;
that was one of the incidents of warfare, and
the imperialists were at least as ruthless as the
rebels ; but certain sacred names were blazoned
in the Rebel proclamations, and in their books
and tracts. Such is fanaticism. Let Heaven
and Earth perish,^ so that our scheme of ver-
bal theology may triumph. For eight years,
and perhaps longer, the Protestant missionaries
continued to be partisans of the Rebels,^ and
one of the most experienced of them, at the

1 "Among Christians there is, we are sorry to say, too large a
party that would rather allow heaven and earth to go to pieces
than confess a mistake on their part." — Dr. Faber.

2 They had also the contemporary (1856) sympathy of the
too-soon forgotten Thomas Taylor Meadows, whose valuable
work on China stands on the shelves of a certain circulating
library these many years, uncut.

The Taiping Rebellion* 9S

head-quarters of the chief, was enthusiastic
over the orthodoxy of the junior leaders whom
he personally cross-examined in the presence
of, among others, the present writer, as late as
1 86 1. The tide eventually turned, and in
view of the decidedly polygamous proclivities
of the Wang himself, and some rather serious
aberrations in doctrine, the missions ^ gradually
withdrew their sympathy, washed their hands
of the new Christians — Dr. Williams calls
them "these misguided men" — and passed
by on the other side.

This was very well for the foreign evangel-
ists, but what of the Chinese government ? It
could not blow hot and cold, but had to make
up its mind and meet the calamity, whether in
its quasi-orthodox character, as it appeared
when viewed from a distance, or in its more
heretical aspect when seen at closer quarters.
And what of the fifty, twenty, or were it even
but ten, millions of victims ? Their ghosts as-
suredly would be little solaced by the news
that after all certain flaws had been found in

1 The Catholic missions were adverse to the rebellion con-
sistently from first to last.

g6 China and Christianity*

the orthodoxy of the Rebels. It was obvi-
ously the same thing to people and govern-
ment whether these scourges of theirs were
sound on the Fi/ioque, or not.

In his work on " Religion in China/' third
edition, 1884, Dr. Edkins gives an interesting
though brief account of the genesis of the
Taiping rebellion, which, republished thirty
years after the final suppression of the rising,
may be taken as the verdict by which the
Protestant missionaries are, on the whole, will-
ing to abide. " The insurrection," he says,
" began in strong religious impressions de-
rived from reading the Scriptures and tracts

published by Protestant Missionaries

We see in this movement the effect of the dis-
tribution of Bibles and Christian tracts

They felt the power of Christian truth . . .
but they were without guidance in com-
prehending the use of the Old Testament in
Christian times." In plainer language the
Wang drew his inspiration from the Hexa-
teuch, and other parts of Scripture, and with
his Oriental aptitude for visions, convinced
himself that he was divinely commissioned to

The Taiping Rebellion^ 97

slay his idolatrous countrymen, and to com-
bine in his own person the missions of Joshua
and King David. ^ The Bible, without note
or comment, working on a half-educated,
brooding, and unprepared mind !

"The Christian insurgents in China never
had the confidence of any part of the nation,"
says Dr. Edkins. The missionaries have
nevertheless been much encouraged by the
Taipings, whose conversion they deemed an
earnest of the evangelization of China ; while
the political aims and deplorable excesses of the
rebels were attributed to, if not excused by, the
absence of personal instruction by foreign mis-
sionaries, a wholly insufficient account of the
matter.

To the Chinese government and people,
however, there was no extenuating circum-
stance in the movement, which they always
speak of with unmitigated horror. The impe-
rial rescript on the report of the death of the

1 " Supposing Clovis had in any degree ' searched the scrip-
tures ' as presented to the Western world by St. Jerome, he was
Ukely, as a soldier-king, to have thought more of the mission of
Joshua and Jehu than of the patience of Christ, whose sufferings
he thought rather of avenging than imitating." — RusKiN.

98 China and Christianity.

Chief said with a pathos rarely found in State
papers : "Words cannot convey any idea of
the misery and desolation he caused ; the meas-
ure of his iniquity was full, and the wrath of
both gods and men was roused against him/'

It is no Chimaera, therefore, that the Chinese
dread in Christianity but a proved national
peril, their vague intuitions of this having
ripened suddenly into a terrible experience.
Perhaps the gravest feature in the Taiping out-
break, considered as an episode of Christian
development, was that, although unforeseen, it
was a not unnatural result of the fermentation
of Hebrew theology and theocracy undiluted, in
minds fretting at the hardness of the problems
of life. Regarded in the light of religious
history the great Christian insurrection was not
more extravagant in its combination of ferocity
with fervour than other moral hurricanes which
have swept over mankind, though the uncon-
scious blasphemy of its creed may perhaps put
it in a class by itself.

There is here no question as to the intrinsic
merits of the Taiping insurrection, or the true

The Taiping Rebellion* 99

character of its head. Whether it would have
been better in the long run for the Chinese, or
for the human race, that the movement should
have succeeded, or whether the leader was a hero
or an impostor, are speculations which have an
interest of their own, but are out of place here,
our concern being only with the phenomena of
the rising, and with the estimate formed of it
by the Chinese government and people, who
have the pre-eminent right to judge.

The practical question is, what security have
the Chinese against a repetition of this, or some
other form of calamity? The depths of fanati-
cism have not yet been sounded, nor the pos-
sible vagaries of the human heart exhausted.
Much the same evangelizing proceedings,
which incited the Taiping rebels, at least so far
as the Chinese Government can be expected to
distinguish, are being carried on without inter-
mission over a vastly wider field ; and the mis-
sionaries to-day know perhaps as little of the
ferments which they may have set up in thou-
sands of minds,^ as they did of the incubation

1 '* The Chinese — both converts and heathen — know the mis-
sionary better than the missionary knows them. The fact . . .

loo China and Christianity*

of Talpingdom. They disseminate among
unknown millions the most stimulating litera-
ture ever penned, apparently without misgivings
as to the results.

would seem to imply a strange inability on the part of the for-
eigner to reach that mysterious realm, the celestial mind." —
Chinese Recorder,, August, 1892.

Anti-Christian Literature^ loi

VIII.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.

Dr. Wells Williams devotes a paragraph
or two of that standard repository of what is
known about China, The Middle Kingdom, to
the discussion of the efficacy of propagandism
by means of the printing press. " Fifty thou-
sand books were scattered on the coast " in cer-
tain voyages of a semi-missionary character in
1836 and 1837, "and more than double that
number about Canton, Macao and their vicin-
ity. " " No one supposed that the desire to re-
ceive books was an index of the abiHty of the
people to understand them ... if the plan
offered a reasonable probability of effecting
some good, it certainly could do almost no
harmy What kind of harm might be in the
mind of the learned author is not explained,
the worst fate suggested in the context for the
harmless literature itself being to " be cut up

I02 China and Christianity*

for wrapping medicine and fruit, which the
shopman would not do with the worst of his
own books." A generation later, one mission
press in Shanghai was pouring out thirty
million pages annually, an amount which was
more than doubled by the other mission
presses ; and Dr. Williams, in recording this
gigantic feat,^ adds : " The effects of this litera-
ture upon the native mind which these agencies
are scattering wider every year will be apparent
in the near future.** No doubt ; but what are
the fruits already apparent ? One crop ripened
and garnered, as we have seen, was the Taiping
rebellion. Another copious harvest is being
now gathered in ; the notorious Hunan publi-
cations. Vile and unmannerly though these
be, they yet constitute a reply to the pressing
appeal of the missionaries to the Chinese
literati, and it is not the challenger who has
the choice of weapons.^ Of all the provinces

1 " We want quality, not quantity. . . . We have an associa-
tion Secretary who repeats ad nauseam the word millions, and
whose cry is perpetually for ?noney. You never hear this cry
from Apostles." — Rev. R. H. Cobbold, in Messenger, April,
1892.

2 " The famous and infamous placards of the last eighteen

Anti-Christian Literature* 103

Hunan is the one which has been inundated
with what claims to be Christian literature,
and thereby, Hunan has been provoked to
return samples of its own. Missionaries, espe-
cially of the Protestant sects, have in generous
emulation during fifty years been doing with
all their might what their Founder expressly
warned them not to do (Matt. vii. 6^), and
now they stand horrified at the consequences
which he foretold as precisely as if this particu-
lar case had been in his mind.

It is not, perhaps, the holy things so much
as the needlessly irritating, possibly insulting,
and really unedifying and unintelligible things
sometimes contained in the " Christian " litera-

months are avowedly a counterblast of the Society's tracts. If
the truth is to conquer the foulness of error. ... we must be
ready to stem the issuing stream by an inflow of pure literature."
— Hankow Religious Tract Society's Appeal. Chinese Recorder,
March, 1892.

1 " In pursuing the course described above [the reckless circu-
lation of Christian literature] we have sometimes acted in direct
opposition to the spirit if not the letter of our Saviour's com-
mand ' Give not that which is holy, etc' . . . Our faiUng to fol-
low the instructions of our Lord in this respect may perhaps
account for the meagre and disappointing results which have fol-
lowed the very extensive distribution of books for the last 40 or
50 years." — Rev. Dr. Nevius, Recorder, 1884.

I04 China and Christianity*

ture which are the most answerable for the
filthy abuse which has been lavished on the
missionaries and their faith. It is not of course
to be doubted that the editing ^ and circulation
of tracts and scriptures is carried out as effi-
ciently as the stupendous mass of matter dealt
with allows,^ but until some competent and
independent sinologue assumes the task of
sifting the productions of the mission presses
the world cannot know what incentives may
have been offered unwittingly to these Chinese
revilers. It is by no means impossible that
even the foulest of their epithets might be
traced to some unhappy expressions in original,
or translated compositions by foreign mission-
aries impatient to try their hand ^ before acquir-

1 " Most of these books, as also the greater number of articles
in the newspapers put in the hands of the Christians, contain in-
digestible stones instead of bread." — Dr. Faber. But what of
the no7i- Christian population of Hunan, and elsewhere? Would
not " stones of offence " be in their case a more descriptive
term?

2 The Hankow Tract Society issues one million tracts every
year.

3 " Perhaps nothing has been more hurtful to missionaries in
preparing books, than haste, . . . the desire to huriy it through
the press lest some of the readers of China should die without

Anti-Christian Literature^ 105

ing sufficient command of that double-edged
weapon, the Chinese language ; or of others
carried away by an inflexible conviction that
what is good in season and in appropriate cir-
cumstances must be good absolutely and
always. Dr. Chalmers, of Hongkong, once
heard a Chinese crowd laughing at the preach-
ing of a foreigner who was incessantly repeat-
ing the Chinese name for God, Tien-chu. But
his manner of pronouncing the words conveyed
the sense of " mad pig " at every utterance of
which the audience broke out into peals of
laughter. Ex uno disce omnes. What could
missionaries themselves not say on such topics
would they testify ? The incident is truly full
of grave suggestiveness.^

Let it be granted that the Christian literature
with which Hunan has been flooded is for the
most part wholesome and void of offence.
The Chinese literati, however, with their strong

seeing it 1 In a great majority of instances unprejudiced judges
will be of the opinion that the world can afford to wait a little."
— Rev. Dr. Nevius, Recorder, 1884.

1 The bestial expressions complained of in the Hunan pam-
phlets are stated by the latest authorities to be exactly such plays
on words as are indicated in the text.

io6 China and Christianity*

prejudices and their foregone conclusion, natu-
rally select the parts most suitable for their
controversial purposes just as the Christian
missionaries perhaps hold up the worst of the
Chinese tracts for execration. But could any
thing be more untoward than the connection
of the methods of propagandism with this ava-
lanche of bad literature which issues continu-
ously from Hunan ? ^

So far, however, are the zealous missionaries
of Hankow and Wuchang from seeing the
matter in this light that they make urgent ap-
peals for increased means of carrying on their
duel with the Hunan pamphleteers, only claim-
ing that their adversary be muzzled while they
redouble their efforts to silence him.

1 " To oppose enmity is to increase it. . . . There is much
slang and obscene language in the streets which we, in most cases,
cannot comprehend, but may see the effects of it on the faces of
the by-standers. To go on with a religious discourse under such
circumstances would show a want of good taste and judgment on
the part of the preacher. . . . When an audience shows signs of
profanity or indifference, then, a dignified silence is the best ora-
tion. The Jews not only opposed the apostle, but they blas-
phemed. This made any further preaching among them hope-
less." — Dr. Faber.

Anti-Christian Literature. 107

With two such, and so widely different
answers to their message to China before them
it might seem reasonable for the propaganda to
pause and consider what form the next answer
may possibly take, whether in the near, or the
distant future. But it is remarkable that the
missionaries, so far at least as they may be con-
sidered to be represented by the two learned
gentlemen above cited, seem scarcely conscious
of the possibility of evil resulting from this
prodigious mass of what may be called dy-
namic literature.

io8 China and Christianity*

IX.

CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.

Some readers who have followed the theme
thus far may possibly wonder that while frequent
reference has been made to other countries
there has been no allusion to the remarkable
history of Christianity in Japan. But the cir-
cumstances of that country and its people are
so different from those of China that it might
be misleading to make any comparison, except
as a matter of curiosity. Japan is a State which
may be said to have always known its own
mind, and acted out its opinion. When she
admitted Christianity she did so heartily ; when
she suppressed it she did so relentlessly, but
not without valid reason ; and when she read-
mitted the religion it was as part and parcel of
the general civilization of the Western nations
to which by deliberate choice Japan opened
wide her arms. By the promptitude of her

Christianity in Japan* 109

decision Japan avoided all appearance of coer-
cion by foreign powers. (What, by the way,
does Mr. Bosworth Smith mean by his repeated
references to the criminality of Great Britain's
wars with Japan?) And her treaties contain
no toleration clauses, nor any that are deroga-
tory to her dignity, although an idea has been
kindled in recent years that the extra-territorial
stipulations do belong to that category. There
is consequently no true analogy between the
respective relations of China and Japan towards
foreign nations, foreign religions and foreign
life. The geographical proximity of the two
countries does no doubt suggest to the Western
world a similarity in their circumstances which,
however, is only superficial ; and if their oppor-
tunities of observing each other prompt some
mutual emulation, that also is scarcely less
superficial. Ships and guns, miHtary drill, and
material appliances may be copied, but what
makes for the peace and prosperity of a nation
is too deep for imitation, it must be a growth
from within, nourished though it may be by
atmospheric influences from without. Japan
seems to be receiving Christianity in its most

no China and Christianity

innocuous and enduring form, for the people
are receiving it, and the pyramid is being built
on the widest base. Of the many pleasing
spectacles which a visit to that tourist's paradise
always affords, perhaps none leaves a more
agreeable impression than the decorous worship
of large Japanese congregations conducted en-
tirely by natives. And the vernacular religious
press is now a recognized factor in the social
system. The government there has no fears
about its Christian subjects, whom it knows
only as exemplary citizens ; and it winks at the
pious frauds of the foreign missionaries who
take out passports to travel for their health or
in the pursuit of science, because it recognizes
that it has the propaganda well in hand. The
establishment of the Catholic Hierarchy in
Japan affords the most substantial proof that
the government of that country has adopted a
policy of benevolent toleration towards Chris-
tianity, based on the conviction that it will
never have to account to foreign powers for its
attitude towards either the religion or its fol-
lowers. Added to which, the Japanese people
are peculiarly sensitive to all foreign influences.

Christianity in Japan. iii

and do not present that mass of stolid resistance
which innovations encounter in China. The
circumstances attending the introduction of
Christianity into the respective countries, there-
fore, present scarcely anything but sharp con-
trasts, and probably no lesson for China can be
drawn from Japan excepting such as could only
be applied by reversing the wheel of history
for fifty years, and undoing the chapter of evo-
lution by which the new Japan itself has
emerged from its secular isolation.

112 China and Christianity*

X.

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS.

Reverting to the proposition with which
we set out, China has been compelled by na-
tions stronger than herself to admit their re-
ligion, which, after full deliberation, she had
decided to reject, and for reasons which,
whether good or bad, were at least not unintel-
ligible. Nor has any option been left to her
as to which of the different forms of Christi-
anity she would prefer ; she is forced to tol-
erate the propagation of all indiscriminately,
which is more than the nations which coerce
her themselves do. In the irksome and anx-
ious position into which they have been
thrust, the leaders of the Chinese State have,
so far, derived little support from either foreign
statesmen or the leaders of the Propaganda.
Dr. Williams himself, so long familiar to the
government as Charge d^ Affaires for the

Practical Considerations* 113

United States, in which capacity he must have
been largely occupied with mission affairs, had
no clearer or more practical counsel to be-
queath to China than that : " The progress
of pure Christianity" — so easy to write! —
" will be the only adequate means to save the
conflicting elements . . . from destroying
each other.'*

The Chinese opposition to Christianity dur-
ing the last three hundred years has undoubt-
edly taken arbitrary, harsh and cruel forms,
yet considering that during nearly the whole of
that period the sovereignty of China was under
no foreign constraint, the forbearance with
which she has treated recalcitrant missionaries,
even during state persecutions, will compare
not unfavourably with the record of similar
persecutions elsewhere.

Compelled by foreign powers suddenly to
reverse the engines of state policy which had
been gathering momentum in one direction for
some centuries, the Chinese government has
met the new conditions in as accommodating
a spirit as could perhaps, under the circum-
stances, have been expected. At the same

114 China and Christianity.

time it is plain to be seen, and ought to have
been foreseen, that an act of state was not effi-
cacious to change, as by a magician's touch, the
hearts of a nation and of a numerous official
hierarchy.

Whether the Western governments were
well or ill-advised in this exercise of their
power is now of little practical significance.
The historical transaction cannot be undone,
nor the status quo ante in any manner restored.
It remains only to be considered, what is
China to do with regard to this force, — in-
scrutable, indomitable, inflexible, yet, on its
own conditions, passionately benevolent ?

She cannot exclude or repress it, any more
than she can exclude Influenza or the Mon-
soon. She must receive it. She has already
done so indeed, but with a bad grace — as was
natural — and grudgingly ; a most dangerous
half-measure. For she has by her treaties
given to foreign powers at least the semblance
of the legal right to call her to account if she
fails to protect Christian missionaries, while by
her furtive and wavering action she allows offi-
cials and people to furnish the foreign powers

Practical Considerations. 115

with constant pretexts for exercising that right.
No position could be more hazardous for
China, as many of her public men, who know
something of the Western world, must be well
aware. The pressure of Christianity will never
abate ; it will on the contrary augment, and if
it is difficult now to maintain an erect position
in its presence it may be impossible to do so
hereafter when the foreign religion has con-
solidated its strength. In short, unless some
other agency anticipates its slower action, Chris-
tianity may be the force destined eventually to
dissolve the Chinese, as it did the Western
empire, and to destroy the present fabric of
its society.^

To announce danger is easy ; not so the
task of concerting measures to avert it. The
difficulty of an effective co-ordination of the
component forces of the Chinese State being
formidable, the temptation to temporize is
strong, for there is no man living, however
pessimistic, but may expect the status quo to
last at least his time, if not a good while beyond
it. Few there be who dare to face the unpopu-

1 See Note p. 37.

ii6 China and Christianity^

larity which a judicious regulation of Christian
affairs would entail in a country where there is
so much to lose, so little to gain, by the active
display of public spirit. The parallel between
the China of to-day and the Rome of 1800
years since, though imperfect and in many
respects invalid, yet in certain features runs so
close, that an imaginative Chinese might almost
read the destiny of his own country in the
events of that remote time. The Caesars were
tolerant of the new religion, thinking it, might
mingle harmlessly with the numerous existing
systems which, like it, had come mostly from
the East. Though in theory it violated the
laws, the Emperors were reluctant to put the
laws in force ; and though without sympathy
for the sect, they, like Kien-lung, could find
no real fault in it, and were always recom-
mending the Christians to mercy. Nor was
the deference paid by the Caesars to popular
sentiment very unlike that now shown by
the Chinese Emperors to provincial opinion.
Then, as now, the rulers were willing to pro-
tect Christians alike from popular violence and
official animosity, and though even Marcus

Practical Considerations* 117

Aurelius, a man saturated with ethics, allowed
himself to be constrained to issue severe edicts
against the Christians, like K^ang-hsi 1500
years after him, yet as Mr. Lecky records,
" the atrocious details of the persecutions in
his reign were due to the ferocity of the popu-
lace and the weakness of the governors of dis-
tant provinces," a not inapt description of some
of the anti-Christian outrages in modern China.
Unfortunately the experience of Rome fur-
nishes no lessons for China except in the way
of warning, and neither the ages of tumult
during which the present Europe was being
evolved, nor the actual position of these West-
ern countries afford her any positive guidance;
for none of them can be said to have dealt
successfully with the religious problem. The
United States of America, indeed, though not
without a struggle, enjoy the supreme happi-
ness of religious and political equilibrium, but
that is the result of a situation absolutely
unique, which cannot be imitated. The adjust-
ment of the relations of Christianity to the
Chinese State therefore can only be evolved,
without direct aid from precedent, from the

ii8 China and Christianity*

action of general principles which may be
deduced from a diversity of experience. Re-
ligious enthusiasm is a contingent factor, on
which the Taiping episode sheds but a dim
light ; and as to the form which Christianity
will assume when eventually acclimatized in
China, all that may safely be predicted is that
the new amalgam will be unlike anything that
has yet appeared in the world. Its main char-
acteristics, however, will probably be to an in-
definite extent determined by the circumstances
of its mode of introduction. Which is a vital
question for Chinese Statesmen and imperial
counsellors to consider, could they but per-
ceive its urgency.

The problem is necessarily abstruse where
unknown psychological factors are concerned ;
and assuredly no solution of it will be attempted
here. Nor is it perhaps within the competence
of any man to work out an equation containing
so many unknown qualities. What may be
done, however, is to indicate one or two primary
canons which should govern legislative and
administrative dealings with the subject, canons
based on ascertained and unalterable facts. For

Practical Considerations* 119

though the end of a journey may be hidden in
mist one may advance in confidence if only
the first steps be in the right direction, trusting
that the- way may become clear as successive
stages are reached.

I. The first canon by which the relations
of Christianity should be regulated may be
stated without hesitation. It is the complete
fulfilment of existing obligations. China has
undertaken by treaty to protect missionaries
and to tolerate Christianity, and she must pro-
tect and tolerate accordingly, without equivo-
cation or reserve. No matter if the obligation
was imposed by force, the nation and the gov-
ernment stand bound to it in law, and therefore
in honour, at least until they find themselves
strong enough to make a fresh appeal to the
tribunal under which the foreign treaties were
imposed. To protect nominally, and yet se-
cretly persecute, or connive at persecution, is
not only a device unworthy of a civilized gov-
ernment and of a body of highly educated men
like the Chinese ofiicial class, but it is also the
road to ruin. Unless therefore the ministers

I20 China and Christianity^

who are responsible for the welfare of the State
can nerve themselves to the required resolution
it will be futile to discuss or manoeuvre at all
in this matter, for whatever they do will be
vain so long as the fundarqental condition of
success is not complied with.

The difficulties in the way of the Chinese
government so fulfilling its obligations to for-
eigners are partially understood, and sympa-
thized with by foreigners. But that feeling
does not diminish by a feather's weight the
gravity of the duty. The Imperial govern-
ment is naturally, and properly, reluctant to
humiliate its Viceroys to please foreigners, who
are the objects of common aversion. The
Viceroys have still stronger temptations to
evade their duty to foreigners whenever it re-
quires them to reprove their own subordinates,
or still worse, bring under the discipline of the
law men of influence who are detached from
the regular service of the State. Yet nothing
less than this is imperatively required of all
who occupy posts of trust in the government.
It is a duty, however, which, Hke many others,
may be harder in anticipation than in execu-

Practical Considerations. 121

tion, and one which might evolve the needed
strength by the action itself. A firm resolu-
tion on the part of the Central government to
tolerate no evasions from either high or low
would of itself more than half accomplish the
object, and one or two conspicuous examples
made of contumacious officials might achieve
it altogether. When men are sincere they are
usually taken at their word, and the rulers of
China would find their word would pass as
good current coin of the realm as soon as they
gave clear proof to their servants that they in-
tended to make it so.

Reduced to practice this canon would make
short work of anti-Christian rioters and of the
authors and publishers of calumnious attacks
on Christians, as such. The men who have
long been screened by powerful influences
from the consequences of their shameless
deeds would be punished like common male-
factors, and the government would not wait to
be stirred to action by foreign officials or pub-
lic demonstrations, but would in all cases be
beforehand with them, and thus leave abso-
lutely no ground of complaint.

122 China and Christianity*

How far the Chinese government and rul-
ing classes are at present from the attainment
of such a standard of national duty need not
be said. But it cannot be too strongly re-
iterated that it is only in the full realization of
the administrative ideal thus indicated that the
government can hope to find salvation.

II. The relations between the civil author-
ities and the Christians should be settled and
defined.

It is too late in the day perhaps to regret
that there should ever have arisen any question
of special treatment of converts to Christianity.
It is the wisdom of China, as of other states,
to make all her people equal before the law ;
and it is the foreign powers which are, prima-
rily, answerable for forcing her government to
deal with native Christians as if they really
constituted a State within the State. But Chi-
nese provincial officials have fallen easily into
this way of regarding them ; notwithstanding
that it was opposed to the declared policy of
the empire. (See Appendix I.) It would in-
deed be hard to say which of the two parties

Practical Considerations* 123

— the Christian or the anti-Christian — has
evinced the greatest eagerness to effect the
complete isolation of Christians from the body
of the Chinese people. The questions deserve
to be calmly weighed : — whether the segre-
gating process shall be allowed to extend ;
whether it shall be arrested at the point which
it has now reached; or whether even a retro-
grade movement towards obliteration of the
legal distinction between Christian and Hea-
then shall be inaugurated.

The holding of property away from the
commercial ports by missionaries, under the
French treaties of 1858-60, seemed to neces-
sitate the official recognition of the Mission
as a corporation, since individuals could not
by the rules of their Orders acquire sites or
erect Churches in their own right, and so the
missions naturally became identified with the
congregations. But sound property legisla-
tion is one of the chief pivots on which the
peace and order of communities turn ; and
from the Chinese political point of view it
was probably a misfortune that the missions
in their collective character ever obtained so

124 China and Christianity.

much necessary consideration from the local
authorities as to have buildings and ground
officially registered in their name.-^

The sequel is still an unwritten chapter of
history, but hints are given from so many
quarters, native and foreign, as to leave little
doubt of the fact that congregations of Chris-
tians in the interior are prone to club together
for the common defence, and to abuse the
protection which their foreign pastors, under
the aegis of foreign treaties, are able to give
them. It is the same spirit that prompts the
native servants of Europeans at the treaty
ports to rely on the prestige of their employ-
ers to screen them from the consequences of
their insolence to their countrymen. Experi-
enced missionaries have to be constantly on
their guard against plausible complaints of
injustice made to them by their converts, but
younger and more eager men, and those who
are constitutionally disposed towards partisan-
ship " rush in " where the more wary " fear to

1 The Chinese government found it necessary during the
Ming dynasty, to limit the landed possessions of Buddhist mon-
asteries to 60 mu, or 10 acres.

Practical Considerations* 125

tread ; " and take part in village-law suits
which they are able to conduct with greater
ability and force than natives working on their
unaided resources. It may be admitted that
the habitual laxity and dilatoriness which char-
acterize Oriental procedure offer constant
temptation to impatient outsiders to intervene
in order to accelerate the despatch of business.
Nothing but injury to the Christian name,
however, can result from such illegitimate
interferences, while it is not Christianity that
is really at fault, but the cupidity of men, who
may have entered the Christian community
solely from these secondary motives.^

It would seem to be a very fair thing for
the Chinese government to appeal to the con-
sideration of Western governments in this
matter, and if it could but come into court
with clean hands, that is to say, having scru-
pulously fulfilled its own obligations under
treaty, the Western governments could
scarcely help listening to the plaint.

1 " Whole villages have offered to turn Christians " to gain
" the powerful influences of foreigners on their side in some liti-
gation." — Rev. R. H. Graves, in Chinese Recorder.

126 China and Christianity*

All foreigners residing or travelling in the
interior under passport should be strictly for-
bidden by their own authorities from med-
dliTig in any dispute between Chinese, whether
Christians or not. Such prohibition need not
in the least impair the influence of private
counsel in promoting goodwill, but as there is
no judgment in the common affairs of life
more fallible than that of the average ecclesi-
astic, of any communion, such an interdict
could not but have a salutary effect on the
peace of Chinese communities.

That some Christian pastors would vehe-
mently resist any legislation tending to disinte-
grate their Christian communities is highly
probable ; and, from their point of view, they
would have valid reasons on their side. There
is doubtless this real difficulty in the way, that,
as the Chinese Christian by breaking away
from the traditions of his family and neigh-
bours generally forfeits his status as a member
of the clan or village-community, it is natural
that he should strive to regain the lost position
through the creation of a new caste, or social

Practical Considerations* 127

unit, — the Christian commune, with its offi-
cers corresponding to village elders, and enjoy-
ing equal legal recognition with the villages
themselves. Dr. Faber, whose logical mind
cannot rest in equivocations, claims these privi-
leges in the clearest terms, on the broad, if
somewhat ingenious, ground, that the Chris-
tians, having by the foreign treaties been
absolved in certain matters from the law of
the land, obey the paramount Divine Law,
which gives them the right to toleration, and
toleration means privileges. It may be as
much the duty of the Christians, as such, to
prefer these claims as it is of the government
to deny them ; but there is here in fact the
germ ^ of the secular trouble between the
religious and the civil power. A Christian
body capable of unlimited expansion, follow-
ing a divine law which is above the law of the
land, with the Christians themselves as its sole
interpreters, is precisely that kind of social

1 The germ of that phase of the development of Europe
which is thus epigrammatically summed up by Ranke : " Eccle-
siastical estates were no longer described as situated in certain
counties, but these counties were described as situated in the
bishoprics."

128 China and Christianity ♦

organism which any civil government may jus-
tifiably treat with reserve/ But how, then,
it may be asked, is the adjustment between
the parties to be effected, and a modus vivendi
to be established. The government might
reply that, as it is the Christians who have
created the difficulty, it is for them either to
find a solution or to bear the inconvenience
of waiting until one is found ; but that the
government meanwhile has the duty to dis-
charge of preventing any Christian or other
body from getting the upper hand of the civil
magistrate.

In practice, no doubt, the danger to the
Chinese government from the political aspira-
tions of Christians is much diminished by the
miscellaneous character of the Christian bodies.
They have divided themselves, and may be

^ " To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines
of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect
to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Govern-
ment could exist only in name under such circumstances." —
Judgment of Chief-Justice Morrison R. Waite, in the Supreme
Court of the United States. — ScHAFF.

" If government commands us to act against conscience and
right, disobedience becomes a necessity and a duty." — Ibid.

Practical Considerations* 129

more easily ruled than if they were compact ;
and so a state of things which is to be deplored
from the point of view of Christian progress
serves conveniently to lighten somewhat the
burden of the government.

III. A third canon would provide for the
preservation of peace, and the prevention of
wanton provocations between different religion-
ists. Rival sects should, by virtue of the
power inherent in every civilized state to main-
tain order among its people, be compelled to
keep their feelings under discipline in all as-
semblies and public places. The objects and
the rites of Christian worship are not infre-
quently reviled or mocked, and the anger of
the worshippers thereby provoked ; and, on
the other hand, it is far from uncommon for
converts, and even for missionaries themselves,
to inveigh against the native customs and the
native gods ; both practices tending to breaches
of the peace, which ought therefore to be made
amenable to the law.^ Sometimes the attacks

1 " If any person shall abuse or deride any other for his or
her different persuasion and practice in a matter of religion he
shall be looked upon as a disturber of the peace and be punished
accordingly." — Laws of Pennsylvania. — SCHAFF.

ijo China and Christianity*

on idolatry are made in mere mockery, ex-
amples of which find their way into foreign
journals, and are presumably common in the
preaching of evangelists.^ This is, to say the
least, bad taste; but it is more, it is an offence
against decency to cast ridicule on the honest,
however mistaken, devotions of a fellow-mor-
tal ; ^ and it is an offence both against good
order and the laws of hospitality when it is
done by an alien.^ The first Apostles of

1 "Anybody acquainted with Chinese will soon find, if he
attends the foreign street chapels a few times, that the hostile
attitude of many missionaries towards the most cherished beliefs
and feelings of the Chinese is frequently expressed in a most
offensive manner. As for the books ... let those interested
read some of the elementary catechisms or some of the books
deahng with ancestral worship, idolatry or other superstitions of
the Chinese, and he will find these things discoursed on in any-
thing but a kindly spirit. Chinese hear offensive statements in
the chapels, get angry, and denounce the missionary to their
friends. They read the books . . . and determine to pay out
the hated barbarian at the first opportunity." — "A Sincere
Friend to Both Parties." — N. C. Herald, 26th February, 1892.

^ " To revile vath. malicious and blasphemous contempt the
religion professed by almost the whole community is an abuse of
that right" [the right of "free and decent discussion."] — Chief
Justice Kent in Supreme Court of New York, 1811. — Schaff.

^ The foreign missionaries sometimes applaud the courage
of their converts in openly reviling the false gods, and sometimes
they deplore the indiscretion of such sallies, according to circum-
stances and individual temperament.

Practical Considerations. 131

Christianity were particularly tender with the
religious susceptibilities of the people among
whom they moved, so that the sensible magis-
trate, the town-clerk of Ephesus, in his address
to the rioters, was able to testify that these
early missionaries " were not blasphemers of
our goddess.'* Their successors in the next
two or three centuries were not so considerate ;
iconoclasm becoming rampant with the corrup-
tion and the triumph — almost synonymous
terms — of the Church, when the great Am-
brose allowed himself to scoff even at the
virginity of the poor Vestals. It were a good
and laudable thing if all blaspheming of each
other's gods could be rigorously suppressed by
the civil power. This is also a matter on
which Western governments might be ap-
proached, and solicited to frame appropriate
rules for the governance of their nationals.
Then a foreign missionary affronting native
religion in any public manner might first be
warned by the local authority, and, if recalci-
trant, conducted to the nearest consul for de-
portation, while condign punishment would be
equally meted out to any Chinese who should

132 China and Christianity.

vituperate Christianity. Complete reciprocity
in this matter should be insisted upon, and
each party made to do as he would be done by.^

Two drawbacks to any such procedure will
readily suggest themselves : the laxity and
irregularity of Chinese official practice ; and
the scarcely avoidable abuses by underlings.
The most difficult attainment for a Chinese
official is to maintain a just measure in the per-
formance of his functions, — to be firm without
being harsh ; and the difficulty of furnishing
foreign governments with adequate guarantees
for moderation would probably prove fatal to
any arrangement whereby new powers over
foreigners would be placed in Chinese hands.

Meagre and superficial though these sugges-
tions be, and perhaps not judiciously selected
from the heap of desiderata, they are yet so far
in advance of what is proximately realizable

1 As for the sectarian quarrels of Christians inter se, prob-
ably no regulations could be framed to check them; but the
spectacle of two foreign missionaries meeting in a Chinese thor-
oughfare, one warning the people against the religion of Henry
VIII., and the other against the worship of a mere woman, can
hardly, one would think, advance either of the divisions of Chris-
tianity, or be approved by any reasonable man.

Practical Considerations* 133

that it would serve no purpose of interest or
utility, at this stage, to pursue that part of the
subject into greater detail.

Nevertheless the procedure here recom-
mended involves no theoretical innovation, for
the principles are only those which have been ex-
phcitly and repeatedly laid down by the highest
authority in the land, and are, moreover, based
on the religious toleration which was worked
out centuries ago, and became the settled
national policy not later than the Sung dynasty,
A.D. 960-1280. The Edicts of Tao Kwang
may be taken as a convenient starting point for
the new departure in Christian toleration (see
Appendix I.), and all the State papers which
have been issued during the past fifty years
have been in harmony therewith. The Gov-
ernor Shen Pao-chen, in 1862, developed the
doctrine of toleration with a breadth of charity
towards Christians which left little to be desired,
and what gave the highest value to his memo-
rials is that his expositions were not theoretical,
but were suggested by specific occurrences within
his official jurisdiction to which he fearlessly
applied the principles deduced from his obser-

134 China and Christianity*

vation of facts and his knowledge of the impe-
rial policy. The same official, when Viceroy
of Kiangnan in 1876, had occasion once more
to discuss the rules which should govern the
relations between foreign missionaries and the
Chinese people, when he pushed his former
arguments into still greater detail ; his de-
spatches convinced Dr. Edkins that Shen Pao-
chen " anticipated the spread of Christianity in
China to proceed in the same way as was the
case with Buddhism and Taoism in former
centuries." And Dr. Edkins takes Shen Pao-
chen as the mouth-piece of his government.

Tseng Kuo-fan, than whom no more authori-
tative exponent of the permanent policy of
China has been known in this century, in a
memorial which was never intended for publi-
city, also lays down the same law of toleration,
for " while other religions rise and fall from age
to age the doctrines of Confucius survive un-
impaired throughout all ages." And so all
other authentic public documents.

What is needed, therefore, is to give practi-
cal effect to the declared will of the government,
and had this been done sooner, overt violence

Practical Considerations* 135

towards the missionaries might possibly have
been avoided, however far the people might
have been from receiving their teaching.

Before, however, practically considering any
general regulations for mutual toleration, there
is one preliminary duty incumbent on the
Chinese government in order to qualify it for
entering on the discussion. It must deal de-
cisively with obnoxious publications such as
those which are regularly issued from Hunan.
By these productions the literature of China is
stamped with indelible disgrace, for since their
offensiveness has provoked foreigners to repub-
lish them they will henceforth expose to all the
world the ignorance, vulgarity, and intellectual
prostitution of Chinese scholars, as well as their
contemptible attainments in the graphic art.
In this guise will the writers of the Ta-tsing
dynasty enjoy an immortality of infamy in all
Western lands, for these choice specimens of
their works will be preserved, like flies in amber,
in every Hbrary in Europe and America. The
Hunan scholars will be known in future genera-
tions as those who in order to injure foreigners

136 China and Christianity ♦

did not scruple to debauch the minds of their
countrymen with ideas as filthy as they are
false. These disgusting books are acknowl-
edged to be the efficient cause of the riots
which bring humiliation on the government
and penalties on the people. The names of
their authors are well known, thanks chiefly to
the pertinacious investigations of Dr. Griffith
John, who has done admirable service in the
elucidation of the history of these matters ; but
because they are literary graduates enjoying
the protection of high personages ^ the authors
have been allowed to escape the penalty of their
disloyal acts. If the government be not will-
ing to extinguish this source of conflagration
then it is evading its obligations under the
foreign treaties and making itself a participator
in the crime, thus exposing itself to reprisals at
the hands of foreign powers whenever it may
suit their convenience to enforce their rights.
If, on the other hand, the government be not

1 " He (Chou Han) knows well that he is looked upon as a
philanthropist, that he has the real sympathies of the officials on
his side," — Dr. Griffith John in N. C. Daily News, 19th
April, 1892.

Practical Considerations. 137

able to suppress this infamous literature, then
it is not the Emperor who rules, but the authors
and pubHshers of these pamphlets. In either
case these publications, so long as they are in
circulation, constitute a standing inculpation of
the government, which will warrant foreign
powers in assuming its guilt in any given case,
without further inquiry.

What is, perhaps, more serious still is that
the same or similar shocking calumnies against
Christians are repeated in the King-sz-wen, the
collection of State papers, treaties, memorials,
etc., before cited, the latest edition of which,
pubHshed in 1888, came out under the auspices
of Chinese officials occupying the highest posi-
tion in the State.

138 China and Christianity*

XL

RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO PEOPLE, LITE-
RATI, AND IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT.

Let it be assumed, however, that a working
scheme for the treatment of Christianity based
on such general principles as have been sug-
gested shall have been elaborated and carried
into effect — a very large assumption indeed —
still the end of the Christian troubles would by
no means have been reached. The hostility
of the literary and official classes, though out-
wardly suppressed, would suffer no real abate-
ment, but would smoulder, like a subterranean
fire, ready to break forth whenever the repres-
sion was relaxed.

The popular suspicions also would persist
virtually intact ; the dread of witchcraft, the
belief in secret abominations, the mutilations
of the sick or dead, and all the rest, still would
remain to be lived down slowly. Substituting

Relation of Christianity^ 139

impiety towards ancestors for atheism these
imputations are substantially identical with
those made against the primitive Christians in
the West, where they survived through several
centuries of Christian progress. The pulses of
China do not beat faster than those of the
Western races, nor is the intelligence of the
common people more advanced. And if it
should take a century or two for the Chinese
Christians to clear their characters from these
odious suspicions there is no help for it, and
the Christians must even learn to bear it, until
they can convert their present minority into a
majority,^ when the charges would vanish into
air. Possibly the censorious eyes of neigh-
bours may even be a salutary discipline, keep-
ing the converts on their good behaviour.
The finer qualities of Christianity shine bright-
est in adversity, and the Church would be in
evil case were all men to speak well of it.
This reflection might even be stretched to
cover persecution in general as being condu-

1 " We have patiently to wait till a powerful minority, if not
a majority, of the Chinese people is Christianized." — Dr.
Faber.

140 China and Christianity ♦

cive to the healthy growth of Christianity ; for
to what extravagances might an unopposed
Chinese Church not run ! ^ Woe, indeed, be
to him by whom the offence comes, but still,
to apply a phrase coined for a very different
occasion, to the opposition to Christianity in
China, si elle n exist ait pas ilfaudrait Vinventer.
In one respect the Chinese Christians have
the advantage over their Western prototypes.
They do not themselves give countenance to
the calumnies, whereas the early Christians did
not scruple to throw at the heads of heretics
the vile accusations brought by the heathen
against themselves. Nor is it certain that such
inter-Christian amenities have entirely disap-
peared even yet from contemporary history in
the West.^

1 " Rome is best when competing with Protestant rivals — in
the midst of hostile criticism and alien institutions ; worst w^hen
she has it all her own way." — R. H. Hutton.

2 A recent occurrence in Europe illustrates the vitality of
these odious superstitions. In the town of Xanten, in Rhenish
Prussia, a boy was found in a shed dead from a wound in his
throat. Suspicion fastened at once on a Jewish butcher named
Buschoff, owing to the popular belief that the Jews require blood
at certain seasons for their religious rites, and the artistic cut in
the boy's neck being held to betray the practised hand of the
carnifex. The Christian people became so infuriated against

Relation of Christianity* 141

While waiting, however, for the populace to
get their minds purged from these degrading
notions something may and ought to be done
by the officials and literati to uncover the real
truth in regard to Christian practices. They
have at once the means and the intelligence to
sift the facts and to prove or disprove what
has been alleged.^ It is true that even officials
and scholars are credulous enough to beheve
many of the slanders which are circulated
about foreign missionaries. The Emperor Tao

the Jew that, to save him from being lynched more Americano,
the authorities took him in charge and put him on his trial. The
testimony of the witnesses was vociferous and overwhelming,
the gentry corroborating the populace; but when subjected to
the cool analysis of the lawyers the evidence was shown to be
only crystallised gossip, the offspring of an inveterate general
belief in the occult practices of the Jews. But had not the
accused conclusively established an alibi it might still have gone
hard with him. So great, indeed, was the excitement that the
official responsible for the trial at first demanded a battalion of
soldiers to keep order, the burgomaster declining to be answer-
able for the peace of the town. Eventually the dignity of the
legal tribunal was maintained without the resort to military force.
These things took place in the best educated country in Europe
in the summer of 1892.

^ See the emphatic contradiction of the false reports of a
magistrate given in Li Hung-chang's memorial published in the
Peking Gazette of i6-i7th February.

14^ China and Christianity*

Kwang himself, when issuing an Edict of tol-
eration/ as we have seen, could not help
encouraging the belief that the Christians really
picked out the eyes of the sick. But with all
mission establishments and practices thrown
open to the inspection of Government officials
— a thing which is gradually coming to be
thought necessary — there would be no excuse
for these officials continuing in their present
state of dangerous ignorance. And when they
shall have once satisfied their own minds they
can the better clear away the doubts of the
common people by disseminating truthful re-
ports. If the literates of Hunan are willing
to expend their time and money in printing
and publishing calumnies which befoul the
paper they are written on, it would be a small
thing for the officers of the government to
give the pubHc the benefit of their discoveries
in the region of ascertained fact. And this
would be no more than a tardy reparation for
the injury done to the reputation of the Chris-
tians and for the debauching of the imagina-
tions of the illiterate masses.

1 Appendix I.

Relation of Christianity^ 143

Were a modus vivendi ever established with
the populace and the literati the relation of
Christianity to the Supreme government itself
would probably present fev/ difficulties. From
the earliest appearance of foreign religions in
the country the sovereign has been, as a rule,
favourably disposed towards each of them in
succession ; and, except in the few instances
where devotion to one creed biassed them
against others, the Chinese Emperors have been
the defenders of the struggling religion against
the attacks of the official hierarchy. With such
a record before them the hope of Christianity
being one day established as the national faith
may easily assume a concrete shape in the
minds of the foreign missionaries. Perhaps it
is the dream of some and the ambition of
others that Christianity may once again secure a
footing in the Imperial palace. One emperor,
indeed, of the present dynasty has already tan-
talized the propaganda with delusive hopes,
standing near the baptismal font, but intending
only to deceive the missionaries. Members
of his family were actually converted, and in
the persecution which ensued on the death of

144 China and Christianity^

Kang-hsi the first and greatest victim^ were
the princes and princesses of the imperial
house. One was said, indeed, to have stood
very near the throne, perhaps too near, for
Oriental autocrats do not relish in their sight
too many eligible successors, and it is not
altogether incredible that the virulence with
which Yung-cheng pursued the Christians was
inspired by the jealousy which he naturally
felt of his own brothers and their conversion
was perhaps the only pretext under which
he could lay hands on them/ A century
before the reign of Yung-cheng, a Chinese
Constantine and an Empress Helena were
baptized, the forlorn hope of the Mings in
Kwangsi. The time may come when an actual
occupant of the Dragon Throne may take the
plunge. But in the interest alike of Christian
progress and national peace it is to be hoped
the consummation of such hopes may be de-
ferred, long enough at least to allow Chris-
tianity to have first rooted itself in the country

1 " The Jesuits in Peking joined a plot to supplant this
emperor by a younger brother." — Rev. J. Ross, Chijiese Re-
corder, August, 1892.

Relation of Christianity^ 145

by the force of its own principles.^ A Christian
Emperor would be a doubtful blessing whether
he were a mere political convert Hke Constan-
tine, or a religious Fury like Saint Louis, or
some Taiping Wang with a passion for putting
nonconformists to the sword. In any of the
cases that can be conceived, the consequences
almost certainly would be what they have
always been, the fanatics and the quacks, even
though in a small minority, ruling the Church,
importing into their administration of it all the
time-worn abuses, each section serving its own
turn by abetting the schemes of the others.^
The fanatics, from the moment of their obtain-

1 " In the Christianizing of Britain the work uniformly began
with the King and nobles, and from them worked down to the
lower classes, instead of leavening first the people and finally
reaching the King. . . . This explains the ease with which the
profession of Christianity could be made or unmade at the
pleasure of the ruling sovereign, and explains also how the gross-
est heathenism could linger long after the leaders of the nation
had been baptized." — Rev. H. Kingman, in Chinese Recorder,
September, 1892.

2 " To all movements, wise or foolish, flock the two classes
of follower, the sincerely convinced and the insincerely affiliated ;
those who think they are establishing the law of righteousness
on this earth, and those who see nothing but their own advan-
tage."— Mrs. Lynn Linton, Nineteenth Century, March, 1882.

146 China and Christianity.

ing the power, would turn on those sects which
they might deem heretical and crush them by
the aid of the politicians, who would care for
none of these things. And like the persecu-
tion of dissidents and unbelievers in Europe
and Western Asia the oppression of Chinese
by Chinese under an orthodox empire might
even exceed that inflicted under a heathen
regime. A nation thus rent by religious fac-
tion, or dominated by a religious party would
be a sorry result of Christian effort. Yet even
that is one of the conceivable dangers ahead,
remote as it may now appear.

Such gruesome speculations may evoke pro-
tests, and the pure principles of modern Chris-
tianity combined with the refinement of the
twentieth century may be appealed to as guar-
anty of a reign of peace and charity under any
possible Christian rule. But there is no sort
of ground for beheving that China will begin
her Christian development just at the point
which Europe has reached after 1900 years of
conflict; and the principles of modern Christi-
anity are not purer than those of the primitive
Church, which no sooner combined with the

Relation of Christianity^ 147

passions of men than disturbances resulted
which have never entirely subsided. The re-
ligion has to assimilate in China, as elsewhere,
the local worship, mythologies, popular super-
stitions,— modifying them perhaps out of
recognition. It has to absorb, and eventually
to transmute, dormant passions of an order
low, but of torrential force when excited, as we
have seen, the ultimate resultant being beyond
human calculation. Organisms which have
maintained a measured and regulated life in
regions where they have been long accli-
matized are apt to develop unsuspected en-
ergies when transplanted to new situations. So
perhaps it may be with the Christianity which
is hereafter to cover China ; no one can foresee
how it will modify and be modified by its en-
vironment, nor toward which of the existing
forms it may approximate. Until therefore
the religion has established itself in the com-
mon life of the people^ its professors may well
deprecate its adoption by the State. Converts
are not often made to Christianity in the ab-

1 " The gospel should first strike root in the hearts of simple-
minded persons who receive it for what it is." — Dr. Faber.

148 China and Christianity^

stract/ but to some branch or section of the
Church. Which ? let them ask themselves
who may be tempted to pray for an imperial
proselyte, and a national Church.

There remains a present and practical point
of contact between the Imperial Throne and
the propagation of Christianity, which is some-
times alluded to by the foreign press. In
the Sacred Edict, or series of Homilies insti-
tuted by the Emperor K^ang-hsi and amplified
by his successors, and appointed to be pub-
licly read twice a month in all the cities of the
empire (in imitation, it is supposed, of the
preaching of the early missionaries) there is an
article which animadverts on the tenets of
Christianity and warns the people against that
religion. With a superficial show of reason,
this is claimed by some foreign missionaries to
be in contradiction to the toleration clauses in
the various foreign treaties. But the point is
of dubious validity. In the first place a doc-
trinal admonition is not an incentive to vio-
lence ; nor is the toleration of Christianity

1 President Lincoln, a profoundly religious man, attached
himself to no Church.

Relation of Christianity. 149

inconsistent with opposing it by argument.
In the second place the passage in the Sacred
Edict should be taken in its practical rather
than in its theoretical bearing. For an Em-
peror dehberately to rescind the solemn enact-
ment of a revered ancestor would be a very
extreme measure ; to expunge even a section
would be a serious matter. It is in fact never
done. The Chinese Emperors are as careful
not to run counter to the public acts of their
predecessors ^ as the Popes are to maintain at
least apparent harmony in their successive
Bulls ; and in cases where a reversal of policy
may become a State necessity, the most con-
summate skill in the manipulation of phrases,
with a view to keeping up the semblance of
consistency, is called into play, as well in
Peking as in Rome. It appears however the
officials of their own accord discovered a via
media by which the susceptibilities of the for-
eigner were spared, for as Dr. Edkins relates
in his work on "Religion in China,'' the

1 This is fully recognized in the temperate letter from the
Evangelical Alliance in Shanghai to H. E. Mr. Von Brandt,
Doyen of the Diplomatic body. — Messenger, April, 1892.

150 China and Christianity*

Town-Clerk of Shanghai, as probably in other
places where there were foreigners, simply
omitted the objectionable clause in his fort-
nightly reading. Like the Commination ser-
vice and the Athanasian Creed in many
English churches, it was treated as an anach-
ronism, and allowed quietly to drop.

The animus of the Edict becomes further
attenuated when the reference to Christianity
is taken in connection with similar reflections
on Taoism and Buddhism, the idolatrous prac-
tices of which are held up to the people as
matters to be shunned. For the emperor who
propounded the Edict himself openly patron-
ized the Buddhists, as his successors have done
on several marked public occasions. Indeed
the Lama government of Tibet which the
Emperors had no choice but to support, pro-
viding large establishments for the worship and
residence of the priests within and without the
walls of Peking itself, would have made any
real opposition to Buddhism on the part of the
Emperors somewhat ridiculous.

It has been shown, however, by Dr. Griffith
John that the article in the Sacred Edict is

Relation of Christianity^ 151

appropriated by the Hunan pamphleteers as a
base for their calumnies, and as the justification
of the outrages to which they incite the people.
And he therefore claims the rescission of the
passage in chapter seven of the Skeng-yu which
has been so used. " The expunging of this
one passage . . . would do more than any-
thing else," etc.

This is not, however, the first time in reli-
gious history that atrocities have been justified
by the misuse of sacred texts, yet it has never
been proposed that the passages so used should
be forthwith expunged from the Canon. The
condemnation of those who had dared so to
pervert the sense of the Sacred Edict ^ would
probably have been in this case a more feasible
thing to demand and a simpler thing for the
government to grant.

1 "It is not the first time that superstitious and rancorous
fanaticism has quoted respectable, and even really sacred writings
in its favor ... I hope it is not too late to plead that the grave,
and on the whole reasonable edict may not be associated by any
but the Hunan criminals with their foul productions." — Bishop
Moule.

152 China and Christianity*

XII,

ADMINISTRATIVE MACHINERY.

The Reformatory proposals of this charac-
ter which are freely thrown out by foreigners
on all sides for the guidance of the Chinese
government, seem to be after all quite anoma-
lous. The whole practice of foreign agents
tinkering at details of internal administration
needs reconsidering. The circumstances of
China and the passive temper of the govern-
ment have admitted far more of this kind of
interference than would be tolerated in any
other country, but the results have scarcely
justified the departure from orthodox usage,
and some more effective remedy should, if
possible, be devised.

Treaties were forced on the empire engaging
it to new and unknown obligations. As
regards one class of these, the commercial
stipulations, much care was taken on both

Administrative Machinery* 153

sides to provide machinery whereby the treaty
provisions could be put in force smoothly, and
a body of " Trade Regulations " far more
elaborate than the treaties themselves, and of
equal authority, were drawn up by competent
officials. If such precautions were necessary
with regard to a matter so clear and intelligible
as commerce, how much more was it necessary
to provide for the operations of religious prop-
agandism respecting which it was quite certain
that there was no common intelligence between
the parties ! Yet the sweeping clause grant-
ing religious toleration once inserted in the
treaties, the negotiators seem to have given no
further thought to the matter, leaving the prac-
tical solution of the question to be the sport
of accident. The Rev. G. T. Candhn, in a
letter to the Manchester Guardian, has pointed
out this defect in a very lucid manner, and he
attributes much of the missionary troubles to
that very cause. No consideration whatever
was shown to the Chinese government which,
ignorant of the plans by which the propaganda
intended to fulfil this part of the treaty, was
left to discover them gradually by the collis-

154 China and Christianity*

ions between the evangelists and the officials
and people. It was as if the British Parlia-
ment were to vote Home Rule for Ireland,
and leave Orangemen and Catholics to work
out the details in the streets.

Take for illustration the single item of the
acquisition of sites and construction of build-
ings, the acknowledged source of three-fourths
of all the missionary disturbances in China.
At the Treaty ports where foreign consular
agencies are maintained in effective activity, the
most minute precautions are prescribed by
authority with a view to the prevention of
friction between foreigners and natives. The
Consul has to be a party to negotiations for the
purchase of ground, has to approve of every
step, and to investigate if there be any secret
impediments to the transfer to the foreign
buyer. After completion of the transaction
the title deeds issued by the local Chinese
authority have to be deposited with the Con-
sul who retains control of all subsequent trans-
fers. Every safeguard is thus provided against
disputes in places where communities of for-
eigners and natives have learned through the

Administrative Machinery. i^S

daily intercourse of life to tolerate each other,
and where therefore the dangers arising from
misunderstandings are but slight.

But in the interior of the country, several
weeks' journey from any consul, where there
is nothing but raw inflammable material on
one side and zealous men, perhaps undisci-
plined in the common affairs of life, on the
other, not only are no proper regulations pro-
vided for the aquisition of property, but even
the legal rights of the missionaries are left
without any authoritative definition. One
half of them in fact proceed on one theory of
their legal status under treaty, and the other
on another, with none to guide them in their
interpretation of state documents which may
be inconsistent with each other ; and they are
left to discover, perhaps by the light of their
burning houses, those hidden flaws in the
tenure of ground which at a treaty port would
have been ascertained for them by their Con-
sul before the consummation of the purchase.

Chinese of^cials, perplexed by the uncer-
tainties of these proceedings, are sometimes
tempted to seek an illegitimate remedy by

156 China and Christianity.

making in particular localitLes rules which are
one-sided and unworkable. Foreign critics,
perceiving the offence more clearly than the
provocation, denounce such tentative regula-
tions as subtle devices to hinder missionary
work. And though no doubt such would be
in many cases their effect, it would be fairer to
consider them as in their inception a protest
against certain defects in the international
arrangements, for which the foreign treaty
powers are chiefly responsible.

And even when explosions have occurred
the foreign governments instead of taking the
whole question seriously in hand and endeav-
ouring to concert with the Chinese govern-
ment a working scheme whereby missionaries
and people might co-exist in peace have been
content with spasms of recriminations and
occasional interferences with the administration.
There was a specific always ready for each
new outbreak, and simply by forcing such and
such a measure on the Chinese the foreign
ministers flattered themselves that they were
laying the ghost of missionary trouble. At
one time it might be some proclamation or the

Administrative Machinery^ 157

placarding of treaties that was to have the
magic effect of settling everything ; at another
an Edict was insisted on ; and yet, again, the
partial abrogation of some older Edict ; or the
arrest and punishment of an individual man,
or the personal visitation of foreign officials to
the scene. On one special occasion — un-
connected, however, with Christian troubles —
the government was superseded in its func-
tions by an itinerant judicial commission com-
posed of the nominees of a foreign Minister
who imagined he could thereby elicit informa-
tion in the remote interior which official
efforts combined to conceal from him. All
such devices imposed by foreigners were of
course easily rendered nugatory by the ostensi-
ble compliance but secret frustration of the
government.^ In a country, too, where false

1 " In the proclamations put out under foreign pressure the
animus was perceptible to all who could read between the lines.
... So evident was it that the proclamation of August 30th [in
Canton] had caused the riots that one of the Consuls at least,
plainly told the Viceroy so, and the Chinese generally admit that
the issuing of this paper was a grave mistake." — Rev. R. H.
Graves.

" Such a proclamation would have had no more effect in

158 China and Christianity^

accusation has been elaborated into a fine art
it were futile to rely on the text of official
papers for protection. All the Christians in
China might be persecuted to death without a
single allegation against them respecting their
religion. The memorial of Kiying in 1844,
which heralded the new era of toleration, is
based on the alleged continuity of the imperial
policy, which had never interdicted the Chris-
tian religion, though it had punished persons
accused of criminal practices, who happened to
be Christians.^ A Chinese official who is
degraded, and deserves it, is rarely charged
with the real offence, but some other, often
far-fetched, delinquencies are trumped up

Macedonia than so many dozens of them have had in China." —
Dr. Faber, Paul.

" It is a common custom for the Court of Peking to issue
double sets of instructions for the provincial governors. One set,
appearing in the Gazette, is intended for the eye of the foreign
ministers . . , but it is the other set which represents the real
policy of the government." — Shanghai a?td Hankow Committee
of Evangelical Alliance, 1885,

1 The systematic duplicity is well exposed in a publication by
the late Peng Yu-lin, which has recently been translated under
the title of *' Indulgent Treatment of Foreigners," and issued from
the office of the Shanghai Mercury . It is a most important con-
tribution to the elucidation of these questions.

Administrative Machinery. 159

against him. No doubt there may be valid
reasons for this oblique manner of proceeding,
as, for instance, that the real charge might
implicate third parties whom it was not desired
to censure ; but at any rate the practice is con-
secrated by immemorial usage, and the Chris-
tians have no ground for expecting immunity
from its operation. None of these empirical
remedies in fact ever have had the desired
effect on the relations between the people and
the missionaries, and the suggestive faculties
of the foreign officials have been exhausted
without result.

The problem was in truth much too deep to
be solved in any such perfunctory manner, and
obviously the foreign ministers ought either to
have dug down to the roots of the question,
or treated it in quite another fashion, for their
fitful interferences and nerveless discussions
have only served to relieve the Chinese gov-
ernment of much of its moral responsibility
for the execution of the treaties. The Treaty
Powers ought in fact still to make good their
great omission, and in concert with China,
draw up " Missionary Regulations " as they
did Trade Regulations thirty-four years ago.

i6o China and Christianity*

But what would have been easy if done at the
proper time would not be so now, owing to the
accumulated difficulties which invariably close
in over neglected opportunities.^ A combina-
tion of the foreign powers would seem to
be essential to the drafting of any general
scheme, but unfortunately there is no agree-
ment among them, and as far as present
appearances indicate there is no near prospect of
any. When the treaties were made there was
practical harmony between the only powers then
represented, and whatever they might have
established would have bound all subsequent
treaty-makers.^ Then, the thirty-four years

1 On the other hand, however, the thirty years' experience of
legalized missionary work has furnished data for practical rules of
intercourse which could hardly have been anticipated by the
original negotiators of treaties. The conditions of travel and
residence might now be more intelligently defined, and the pass-
port system — to specify one item — so far modified as to confer
the status of permanent resident on missionaries who are now
officially recognized only as travellers in the country.

2 It should be remembered, to the credit of the statesmanship
of Lord Elgin, that when negotiating the English Treaty he re-
strained himself from extorting concessions from China which in
time to come might be taken undue advantage of, under their
most-favoured-nation clauses, by Powers which having taken no
part in the opening of the country, might be less sensible of re-
sponsibility than the original Treaty powers.

Administrative Machinery. i6i

years which have elapsed since Christianity
was legalized and left to pursue its way in
China, while they have been fruitful in valu-
able experience have also given time for the
growth of such irritation among officials and
people as to embitter intercourse between them
and the foreign and native Christians. The
situation has consequently become so compli-
cated that a bold initiative seems to be required
from one quarter or another to restore a work-
ing equilibrium. The foreign powers, how-
ever, not only abstain from taking such initia-
tive, but give a freezing reception to tentative
proposals emanating from the Chinese govern-
ment. The Memorandum of 1871 ^ remains,
with all its faults, the only attempt as yet made
to bring about an amicable agreement, and the
Powers to whom it was addressed have neither
discussed it nor made any counter-proposals of
their own.

If, however, the foreign governments, from
whatever cause, refuse to assist in the elabora-
tion of a scheme of missionary relations, their

1 As this state paper is often referred to and is not always
accessible, it is given in extenso, as Appendix II.

1 62 China and Christianity*

safest alternative would be to leave the details
of internal administration alone, and simply to
insist on every Treaty engagement being ful-
filled to the letter, letting the Chinese find for
themselves the modus operandi. It is a recog-
nized principle in international affairs that
domestic legislation is overruled by Treaty
obligations, and where there is inconsistency
between the two, it rests with the government
in fault to accommodate its internal machinery
to its external engagements in the way most
convenient to itself. The other party merely
holds to the Treaty and requires its fulfil-
ment, refusing to discuss the mechanism of ad-
ministrative economy, which it could never in
any case understand.

Mutual Obligations* 163

XIII

MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS.

The government and the literary classes of
China are, as we have seen, engaged in a con-
test, sometimes secret, sometimes open, with a
spiritual force whose true nature they under-
stand less than they do the nature of electri-
city ; a force which would gladly live on good
terms with them, but which, in any case, will
live with, and probably after, them.

Their objections to the Western religion,
whether well or ill-founded, can in no wise be
allowed, for Christianity will not be denied en-
trance, no matter what obstacles be opposed
to it.

The Western governments, on the other
hand, which broke down the Chinese wall and,
by right of conquest, compelled the nation to
receive foreign missionaries, were, and are,
morally bound to assist the government of

164 China and Christianity*

China to devise means whereby the unwelcome
reHgion may be admitted with the minimum of
friction ; but they evade the obHgation. Nei-
ther, indeed, could they fulfil it if they would,
without such union among themselves as, un-
der existing circumstances, seems unattainable.
For a moment's reflection on the respective
positions of the Great Powers is sufficient to
show the unlikelihood of any steady concerted
action among them. Though in national
concerns nice scruples have to give way to im-
perious interests, there still exists something in
the nature of a public conscience to whose re-
quirements the most powerful states pay at
least a formal deference. More than one of
the Powers having relations with China would
find their hands somewhat tied by considera-
tions of this kind. What sincerity, for exam-
ple, might Russia be expected to throw into
any scheme of forcible protection of a propa-
ganda in China, which at home she utterly
prohibits ? Anti-clerical France, which subor-
dinates her interest, even in the Catholic mis-
sions, to her other ends could never be relied
on to support in China those Protestant mis-

Mutual Obligations. 165

sions which she expels from her African do-
minions. How, again, could the United
States join in pressing China to receive and
protect either American or other missionaries
while, in the face of treaty engagements, they
refuse standing room for Chinese on their
wide territory ? And Spain — what figure
would she make as the Defender of the British
and Foreign Bible Society ? There would re-
main of course Great Britain, Germany, and
Italy, catholic and comparatively clean-handed,
who might act together with a tolerably easy
conscience. But is it quite sure that such
a triple alliance would be allowed by the ab-
stinents a free hand to protect Christianity in
China ? Experience seems rather against such
a supposition. The concert of the Powers,
therefore, appears to be little more than a
diplomatic platitude, and viewed in this light,
the armed forces of Christendom have con-
ferred on Christianity in China only a compro-
mising alliance while leaving it, in the stress of
conflict, to the mercy of exasperated foes, yet
ready nevertheless to step in, in the last resort,
to avenge some ideal atrocity.

1 66 China and Christianity^

Common action therefore seems out of the
question, and without common action on the
part of foreign powers no ordinances of
the Chinese could take effect, because the
missions belong to various nationalities, and
none of them would respect rules not sanc-
tioned by their own representatives, while
separate rules for each would be entirely un-
workable.

The Powers may, of course, cut the Gordian
knot with the sword, as has been done more
than once ; and if they, or even any one of
them, would but consistently apply this method
the question might soon be solved and set at
rest. For the officials, scholars, and people,
once compelled to respect and protect Christians
without chance of evasion, would become ha-
bituated to the forms of toleration, and might
in time learn to practise voluntarily what they
had been trained to do by force. But enforced
toleration — almost a contradiction in terms —
to be effective would admit of no exceptions
and no wavering. Conciliation may be good,
and compulsion may be good ; but the oscilla-
tion between the two is nearly certain to fail,

Mutual Obligations* 167

because, for one thing, the alternating phases
would be pretty certain to be exhibited at the
least appropriate times.

Faihng, then, assistance from foreign govern-
ments or their representatives, the Chinese
rulers are thrown back on their own resources
to discover a modus vivendi between their
people and the promiscuous elements, foreign
and native, which make up the Propaganda.
These resources are inadequate to the task:
first, because of the inexperience of Chinese
statesmen and their non-comprehension of the
character of Christianity; and secondly, on
account of their preconceived antipathy, latent
and active by turns, to the religion, and their re-
pugnance to all candid examination of it. This
characteristic must paralyze, by tainting with
insincerity, any unaided efforts of Government
to devise a basis of agreement with the propa-
ganda. Notwithstanding these disqualifica-
tions, however, the Chinese government cannot
escape the necessity of dealing with this grave
question, though its action in regard to it
seems, by the very nature of the case, fore-

i68 China and Christianity ♦

doomed to barrenness. For the evasive policy
of the government opposed to the more con-
sistent tactics of the propaganda must produce
continuous friction, generating heat, and lead-
ing, not seldom, to explosions.

It would almost appear, therefore, that the
conflict, like a biological ferment, must run its
course without any intelligent direction from
the parties principally concerned ; and, if the
history of the invasion of Buddhism may be
taken as a precedent, centuries of strife may
have to be waded through before the struggle
can issue in settled peace.

But as in the most desperate condition of
any State there are still individuals " who do
not despair of the republic," but are animated
with courage even to resist fate, so there may
not be wanting in China statesmen who, in
spite of adverse circumstances, will do their
best to smooth the way for the accommodation
of Christianity in this country, some from
motives of temporary expediency, and some,
perhaps, from an awakening conviction of the
blessings which the religion, notwithstanding
the faults of its propagators, has to offer them.

Mutual Obligations. 169

The light cannot for ever be excluded, how-
ever resolutely men may close their eyes
against it ; and in time one and another, even
of the Chinese literati^ many of whom are now
seriously inquiring into its merits, mast be
able, as in the days gone by, to appreciate
Christianity. To suppose otherwise indeed
were to concede it to be the imposture
which the literati as a body now affect to
regard it.

But while the Western governments stand
paralysed by disunion and conflicting interests,
and the Chinese government and governing
classes are floundering in the dark, there is an
important third party, the propaganda itself,
which being endued with light as well as heat,
ought to play an eflFective part in the solution
of the religious question in China. Being
primd facie responsible for the existence of the
trouble the onus rests peculiarly on the mis-
sions to send a peaceful issue out of the imbro-
glio, and to find some broader ground to stand
on than that of mere contention for the utter-
most rights conferred on them by the letter of

170 China and Christianity.

the treaties/ The case is not uncommon in
the Western hemisphere where laws made in
advance of the opinion of the community ^ can-
not be enforced without violence, and where
the beneficiaries, realizing this, submit to the
waiving of rights which have been definitively
secured to them by statute.

The pretensions of foreign missions in China
are of such a nature as to entail upon them an
exceptional degree of moral responsibility for
the consequences of their action ; and from
which shelter is not to be found within the four
corners of any legal instrument whatsoever.
For they assume authority, without appeal,
over the minds and consciences of millions of
human beings ; they claim absolute superiority
over the long line of teachers and moralists
who have preceded them in China : they exer-

1 " Such forcing, based on treaty rights, maintained by much
disagreeable correspondence between foreign consuls and Chinese
high mandarins, has done a great deal to shut up the hearts of
the people against the Gospel." — Dr. Faber.

2 " You cannot have that steady, firm, consistent administra-
tion of the law permanently established until you have brought
the provisions of the law and the sympathies of the people into
harmony." — Mr. Gladstone in House of Commons, August
9th, 1892.

Mutual Obligations^ 171

cise, without reserve, the prerogative of eradi-
cation of all customs, religions, and worships
which they disapprove, under a divine mandate
attested by themselves. From such an order
of men it were surely not unreasonable to look
for some with capacity to manage this perplex-
ing question without constant explosions and
appeals to brute force. Force implies failure
in almost all the circumstances of life where
resort to it is necessary ; and the Christian
mission bodies owe it to their own cause and
character to show that they are at least not ob-
livious of the high qualities which their self-
assumed position requires of them.

Christian societies in sending out missionaries
do not thereby discharge, but incur, obligations
of the gravest character. The evangelization
of China is not the simple numerical problem
it is often assumed to be, and long lists of
missionaries and columns of subscriptions are
of themselves no true cause for gratulation.
If the parent bodies weighed their own respon-
sibilities conscientiously they would rank the
quality of mere fervour somewhat low, and
would choose their agents rather for their

172 China and Christianity.

liberality of education and temperament, their
catholic human sympathies, their common sense,
their aptitude to learn from observation and
experience, and their freedom from dogmatic
assurance. The office of missionary to a people
like the Chinese demands exceptional gifts, and
the ranks cannot be filled from the waifs and
strays of religious life without endangering the
whole enterprise. One man of the right stamp
is worth a thousand impatient zealots, who
accomplish no permanent good themselves, and
by their indiscretions destroy the influence of
those who work on a sounder basis.

Happily this sense of responsibility seems
to be spreading in missionary circles. There
have been, and are, serious men in the various
missions who cannot shut their eyes to the
light of the world, and there are some who,
especially in their declining years, question
themselves deeply concerning the manner and
results of their life's labours, and cast about
earnestly for some more excellent way, if by
any means discoverable. Such an one, it may
now be said without impropriety, was the late
Dr. Williamson who sunk to rest only two

Mutual Obligations* 173

years ago. And there is probably an increas-
ing number who instinctively look first for
faults on their own side, whose feelings towards
the shortcomings of the Chinese are something
more humane than pity and more Christian
than contempt. Since the foregoing pages
were written there has appeared an essay by a
worthy follower of Dr. Williamson, the Rev.
G. Candhn, reprinted in Chinese Recorder for
March, 1892, in which the tactics of provoca-
tion and mere destructive attack on native be-
liefs and institutions is shown to be by no
means the most effective way of transforming
them. The welcome of such a candid deliver-
ance by the editors of a mission organ proves
that the reasonable school is gaining courage,
and seems like the dawn of a brighter day.
From the extension of such a school there would
be much to hope, both for the progress of
Christianity itself, and also for its peaceful con-
tact with the official and lettered classes.^

The whole history of missions testifies that
there is no personal sacrifice or bodily risk

1 See also a courageous and straightforward paper by the
Rev. J. Ross, of Moukden, in Chinese Recorder^ August, 1892.

174 China and Christianity^

which Christian teachers would not incur for
the sake of the propagation of their faith. In
order to free their cause from its political asso-
ciations many would willingly forego the pro-
tection of their own governments ; some would
go further, and divesting themselves of their
birthright, would cheerfully accept the full con-
ditions of Chinese nationality. Such ideas of
course can never be more than pious aspira-
tions, for the protection extended by civilized
states to their citizens, being based on the
interest of the whole community, cannot be
switched on and off, like an electric light, by
individual caprice. Still less is it within the
competence of any one to exempt himself by a
private resolution from the obligations inherent
in his nationality. As his government w^ould
remain responsible for him he would still be
answerable to his government. And were
even the detachment from country and kin-
dred legally effected the missionary would still
not have attained his object, for no metempsy-
chosis could undo his origin and lineage. He
would remain essentially the alien, though
stripped of the privileges and abjuring the pre-

Mutual Obligations* 175

tensions appertaining to an extra-territorialized
foreigner. And ten-to-one but the Chinese
would see in his renunciation only a more un-
fathomable depth of cunning.

But if wiUing to do the "great thing**
which is not required of them, the mission
leaders should also be, as no doubt they are,
ready to promote less heroic measures for the
improvement of the situation. Were it pos-
sible to bring the parties together on some
neutral platform where a dispassionate inter-
change of views might take place between
moderate and reasonable men selected from
both sides, such a conference would not per-
haps be wholly barren of result. Assuming
that there is no radical incapacity on either side
for appreciating the position of the other, and
presuming peace to be the common object, an
earnest effort to secure it, even if but partially
successful in its specific aim, could hardly fail
to achieve something in the direction of a
mutual understanding. And any rapproche-
ment which would admit of the Christian pro-
paganda being carried on with fewer of those
violent concussions which have hitherto marked

176 China and Christianity*

its advance would be an object well worthy of
such efforts.

The obstacles in the way of organizing any
kind of deliberative concourse are formidable
and obvious. For the Chinese it would be a
revolutionary innovation on their traditional
methods of procedure ; and for a mixed body
composed of numerous independent members
like the foreign Missions it would not be a
very simple matter to concentrate effective
authority on any selected representatives.
The difficulty of arriving at such an under-
standing is naturally greatly diminished in the
case of the Catholic section of the propaganda,
where the representative apparatus already ex-
ists in a highly organized form. Other hope
failing, therefore, it seems to be after all to the
Vatican and its disciplined agents that the
Christian world will have to look, if anywhere,
for extrication from its dilemma in China ; for,
having been repulsed elsewhere, it is to that
quarter that the Imperial government would
naturally address itself, if the personal and
national schemes of foreign diplomatists would
but permit it so much liberty of action.

Mutual Obligations^ 177

To discuss the terms of a possible Concor-
dat, whether partial or general, while as yet the
steps prehminary to any agreement whatever
cannot be marked out would be altogether pre-
mature. Much ground has to be gone over,
even under the most favourable circumstances,
before the desired composition of differences
can be brought within the sphere of practical
politics.

Should it eventually be demonstrated that
reconciliation between the parties is unattain-
able it would nevertheless be a real gain even
to ascertain that much, so that the air might
be cleared of distracting illusions. The Chris-
tian propaganda would then be able to con-
tinue the contest with China on definite con-
ditions, and China would know better what it
had to deal with. It may be that the actual
struggle for existence is as essential an element
in the evolution of religious systems as it is in
that of other forms of life, and that all attempts
to evade its hard conditions are but amiable
weaknesses ? Left alone with its Pagan an-
tagonists Christianity would no doubt in the
end fight its way to victory ; although the re-

1 78 China and Christianity.

markable collapse of the missions in High
Asia, after a fierce conflict sustained for many
centuries by an energy which can never be
surpassed, and the extinction of mediaeval
Christianity in China proper by religions much
inferior to itself, stand as warnings to the propa-
ganda that ultimate triumph, though sure, may
have to be purchased dearly, and may be long
deferred.

As for the Chinese government, its neglect-
ing the opportunity of " agreeing with its ad-
versary ** would be only too much in keeping
with its general laissez-faire policy, which per-
mits destructive inundations, famines, insur-
rections to devastate the country, without
prevision or precaution on any adequate scale,
and which conducts its external relations in
such a negligent manner as continually to in-
vite territorial aggression.

In conclusion, let not the inadequacy of the
treatment obscure the greatness of the subject.
For, above all the local friction, ephemeral
disputation and political veering and hauling ;
above the shiftiness of some and the intensity
of others, above the fret and fuss of the day's

Mutual Obligations. 179

work, we really stand in the presence of one
of those grand cosmic conjunctures which shape
human destinies. It is one half of the world
which is challenging the other half; all Chris-
tendom gathering its strength to subdue all
Paganism. Each of them is strong by what
there is in it of truth and nobleness, while our
judgment is bewildered by the error and pre-
judice which cling to them both ; and if the
very term we are compelled by the infirmity of
our language to employ to mark their antithesis
seems to beg the question as to their relative
merits, it is but a nickname which may be
balanced by the coinage of some equally dis-
paraging term on the other side. Both forces
are majestic in their wide and enduring sway
over the hearts of men, in their impulse to
virtue, in sustaining the human spirit in its
struggle for light. None of the historic con-
flicts of the race, though carried on with clamour
and bloodshed, have been laden with vaster
issues ; for this, in its true essence, is a contest
of mind against mind. The whole life and
growth and morality, linked together through-
out long ages, of the largest human society the

i8o China and Christianity.

Sun ever looked upon, actually circulating in
the blood of the living men of to-day, — this
entity which we call China — is invited, nay,
summoned, to surrender much that, in its own
opinion, has immortalized the nation. View
it how we may, and with all possible deduc-
tions, the grandeur of a people who have come
through the stages of human development not
only intact, but expanding and unified, who
have made magnificent attempts to solve the
mystery of the Unseen, and who have dis-
tilled out of their philosophical speculations a
system of practical ethics which has served
them, without revision, for more than two
thousand years — must command the homage
of civilized men.

On the other hand, the forces opposed to it
have also their history and their rich experi-
ences. The leaven which has worked in the
Western races, inspiring their greatest achieve-
ments and imbuing them with the principle of
extension and advancement works still with
unabated energy. It is that vital principle
which after many centuries of effort, has at
length brought the forces of Christendom to

Mutual Obligations^ i8i

the gates of the East, where, with or without
ceremony, they demand admittance. With all
reasonable qualifications, Christendom is prob-
ably not too arrogant in claiming for itself pre-
eminence among the families of man.

We who live near the very meeting points
of the two powers can only by a mental effort
dimly conceive the magnitude of the issues
which are being worked out under our eyes.
Where is the man who can understand the
epoch, blend the opposing currents into whole-
some and vital union, guide them into safe and
fruitful channels ; and from the blackening sky
conduct the storm-fluid innocuously to earth ?

APPENDIX I.

MEMORIAL OF IMPERIAL COMMISSIONER
KIYING, 1844.

KiYiNG, imperial commissioner, minister of
State, and governor-general of Kwangtung and
Kwangsi, respectfully addresses the throne by
memorial.

On examination it appears that the religion
of the Lord of Heaven is that professed by
all the nations of the West; that its main
object is to encourage the good and suppress
the wicked ; that since its introduction to
China during the Ming dynasty it has never
been interdicted ; that subsequently, when
Chinese, practising this religion, often made it
a covert for wickedness, even to the seducing
of wives and daughters, and to the deceitful
extraction of the pupils from the eyes of the
sick, government made investigation and in-
183

184 Appendix L

flicted punishment, as is on record ; and that
in the reign of Kiaking special clauses were
first laid down for the punishment of the
guilty. The prohibition, therefore, was di-
rected against evil-doing under the covert of
religion, and not against the religion professed
by the western foreign nations.

Now the request of the French ambassador,
Lagren6, that those Chinese who, doing well,
practise this religion, be exempt from crimi-
naUty, seems feasible. It is right, therefore,
to make the request, and earnestly to crave
celestial favour to grant that, henceforth, all
natives and foreigners without distinction,
who learn and practice the religion of the
Lord of Heaven, and do not excite trouble
by improper conduct, be exempted from crim-
inality. If there be any who seduce wives
and daughters, or deceitfully take the pupils
from the eyes of the sick, walking in their
former paths, or are otherwise guilty of crimi-
nal acts, let them be dealt with according to
the old laws. As to those of the French and
other foreign nations who practise the religion,
let them only be permitted to build churches

Appendix L 185

at the five ports opened for commercial inter-
course. They must not presume to enter the
country to propagate religion. Should any act
in opposition, turn their backs upon the trea-
ties, and rashly overstep the boundaries, the
local officers will at once seize and deliver
them to their respective consuls for restraint
and correction. Capital punishment is not to
be rashly inflicted, in order that the exercise of
gentleness must be displayed. Thus, perad-
venture, the good and the profligate will not
be blended, while the equity of mild laws will
be exhibited.

This request, that well-doers practising the
religion may be exempt from criminality, I
(the commissioner), in accordance with reason
and bounden duty, respectfully lay before the
throne, earnestly praying the august Emperor
graciously to grant that it may be carried into
eff^ect. A respectful memorial.

Taukwang, 24th year, nth month, 19th
day (December 28, 1844), was received the
vermilion reply : " Let it be according to the
counsel [of Kiying]." This is from the Em-
peror.

1 86 Appendix L

Second Memorial of Kiying, 1845.

Now I find that, in the first place, when
the regulations for free trade were agreed upon,
there was an article allowing the erection of
churches at the five ports. This same privi-
lege was to extend to all nations ; there were
to be no distinctions. Subsequently the com-
missioner Lagrene requested that the Chinese
who, acting well, practised this religion, should
equally be held blameless. Accordingly, I
made a representation of the case to the
throne, by memorial, and received the impe-
rial consent thereto. After this, however,
local magistrates having made improper seiz-
ures, taking and destroying crosses, pictures,
and images, further deliberations were held,
and it was agreed that these [crosses, etc.]
might be reverenced. Originally I did not
know that there were, among the nations, these
differences in their religious practices. Now
with regard to the religion of the Lord of
Heaven — no matter whether the crosses, pic-
tures, and images be reverenced or be not

Appendix L 187

reverenced — all who, acting well, practise it,
ought to be held blameless. All the great
western nations being placed on an equal foot-
ing, only let them be acting well, practise their
religion, and China will in no way prohibit or
impede their so doing. Whether their cus-
toms be alike or unlike, certainly it is right
and there should be no distinction and no
obstruction. — December 11^ 1845.

Imperial Rescript on Above.

On a former occasion Kiying and others laid
before Us a memorial, requesting immunity
from punishment for those who doing well
profess the religion of Heaven's Lord ; and
that those who erect churches, assemble to-
gether for worship, venerate the cross and pic-
tures and images, read and explain sacred books,
be not prohibited from so doing. This was
granted. The religion of the Lord of Heaven,
instructing and guiding men in well-doing,
differs widely from the heterodox and illicit
sects ; and the toleration thereof has already
been allowed. That which has been requested

1 88 Appendix L

on a subsequent occasion, it is right in like
manner to grant.

Let all the ancient houses throughout the
provinces, which were built in the reign of
Kanghi, and have been preserved to the pres-
ent time, and which, on personal examination
by proper authorities, are clearly found to be
their bona fide possessions, be restored to the
professors of this religion in their respective
places, excepting only those churches which
have been converted into temples and dwelling-
houses for the people.

If, after the promulgation of this decree
throughout the provinces, the local officers ir-
regularly prosecute and seize any of the pro-
fessors of the religion of the Lord of Heaven,
who are not bandits, upon all such the just
penalties of the law shall be meted out.

If any, under a profession of this religion,
do evil, or congregate people from distant
towns, seducing and binding them together ; or
if any other sect or bandits, borrowing the
name of the religion of the Lord of Heaven,
create disturbances, transgress the laws, or ex-
cite rebellion, they shall be punished according

Appendix L 189

to their respective crimes, each being dealt
with as the existing statutes of the Empire
direct.

Also, in order to make apparent the proper
distinctions, foreigners of every nation are, in
accordance with existing regulations, prohibited
from going into the country to propagate
religion.

For these purposes this decree is given.
Cause it to be made known. From the
Emperor.

APPENDIX 11.
%M

CIRCULAR OF THE CHINESE GOVERN-
MENT, 1871.

(communicated by the FRENCH CHARGE D'AFFAIRES.)

Tf'anslation.

The object which the Powers and China had
before them originally in signing the treaties
was to establish a permanent situation which
should ensure them reciprocal advantages and
remove abuses. However, the experience of
the last few years has demonstrated that not
only do these Treaties not attain this desired
end of permanency, but also that, up to the
present time, they are difficult to carry into
execution. Trade has in no degree occasioned
differences between China and the Powers.
The same cannot be said of the missions,
which engender ever increasing abuses. Al-

190

Appendix !!♦ 191

though in the first instance it may have been
declared that the primary object of the missions
was to exhort men to virtue, CathoHcism in
causing vexation to the people, has produced
a contrary effect in China. (This regrettable
result) is solely attributable to the inefficacy of
the plan of action (followed in this matter).
It is, therefore, urgent that steps should be
taken to remedy this evil, and to search for a
satisfactory solution of the difficulty. In fact,
this question is one bearing upon those which
influence the leading interests of the peace of
nations, as well those of their trade, which are
equally considerable. Wherever the Catholic
missionaries have appeared, they have drawn
upon themselves the animadversion of the
people, and your Excellency is not ignorant
that cases which have arisen during the course
of several years embraced points of disagree-
ment of every kind.

The first Catholic Missionaries who estab-
lished themselves in China were called "lite-
rates " of the West. The greater part of the
conversions took place at that time among
respectable people. On the other hand, since

192 Appendix E.

the conclusion of the Treaties took place
(i860) the majority of the converts are persons
without virtue ; so that religion, whose object
is to exhort men to virtue, no longer enjoys
any consideration. From that moment con-
sciences have become a prey to uneasiness.
The Christians have none the less continued,
under the shadow of missionary influence, to
mislead and oppress the people : thence arose
renewed uneasiness, then quarrels between
Christians and non-Christians, and, at last,
disturbances. The authorities proceed to in-
vestigate the affair; the missionaries make
common cause with the Christians, and sup-
port them in their insubordination against the
same authorities. Thereupon the feeling of
disquiet which pervades the people assumes
greater proportions. Yet more : veteran
rebels, beyond the pale of the law, amateurs
in intrigue, seek a refuge in the Church, and
lean upon her influence in order to commit
disorders. At this moment the animosity of
the people, already deep, degenerates gradually
into a hate which, at length, reaches its par-
oxysm. The people in general, unaware of

Appendix 11. 193

the difference which exists between Protestan-
tism and Catholicism, confound these two
religions under this latter denomination.
They do not grasp the distinction which should
be made between the different nations of which
Europe is composed, and give to Europeans
the generic name of " men from without ; "
so that, when troubles break out, foreigners
residing in China are all exposed to the same
dangers. Even in the provinces where con-
flicts have not yet taken place uneasiness and
suspicion will certainly appear among the
people. Is not such a state of things of a
nature to occasion a lively feeling of irritation,
and, as a result, grave disorders ^ The differ-
ence which exists between the religions and the
nationalities are truths which are still beyond
the comprehension of the masses, in spite of
constant efforts which have been exerted in
order to make them appreciate their nature.
The Prince and the members of the Yamen,
during the ten years in which they have been
at the head of affairs, have been a prey to
incessant anxiety. These precautions have
been justified by the events at Tientsin, the

194 Appendix II.

suddenness of which was overwhelming. The
proceeding against the functionaries (compro-
mised) have been begun, the murderers have
suffered capital punishment, an indemnity-
has been paid, and relief given ; but, al-
though the affair may to-day be almost
settled, the Prince and the members of the
Yamen cannot throw off the uneasiness which
they feel. In fact, if this policy is the only
one on which one can rely (to settle) the differ-
ences between Christians and non-Christians,
it will become more precarious in proportion
to the necessity there will be to recur to it
oftener, and disorders like those of Tientsin will
be repeated more terribly each time. If the
matter is looked at under its present aspect, the
question is, how is it possible to be on good
terms and to live on either side in peace ? It
is not only to the hatred engendered by the
suppressed animosities of the people, but de-
cidedly also to the provocations of the Chris-
tians, that the conflicts on the missionary ques-
tion which arise in these provinces must be
attributed. If, on one side, these conflicts may
have been brought about by the relative in-

Appendix !!♦ 195

capacity of the local administration, they can
certainly also be attributed to the conduct of
the high Chinese and European functionaries
charged with the direction of affairs (affecting
the two countries), who, knowing the want of
conciliation in the attitude of the missionaries
and Christians, show no good will in seeking
for the means of remedying the evil.

With regard to the Europeans, they only
aim at getting rid of the difficulties of the mo-
ment, without troubling themselves whether
by so doing consciences are disturbed ; to em-
ploy coercion is all that is thought of On the
other hand, the local authorities have only one
object, that of bringing the matter to a close.
Care for the future goes for nothing in this
short-sighted policy. But if we seek, in con-
cert with the Europeans, to secure by effica-
cious means a really lasting understanding, we
do not find among these latter the desire to
found the discussion on equitable bases.
When this discussion arises, they place before
us unacceptable means which they wish to im-
pose on us by force, in order to be able to put
a stop to the matter. That is, in truth, not the

196 Appendix 11.

good and true way to take care of the interests
of the two countries. Anxious about the whole
matter, and sincerely desirous that concord and
peace should reign forever between China and
Europe, the Prince and the members of the
Yamen are bound to seek the best means to
secure this result. Their belief is, that there
are ecclesiastics everywhere in Europe, and that
their presence abroad is therefore without dan-
ger to good harmony. The maintenance of
this happy state of things is, doubtless, due to
the employment of certain means, and to the
fact that ecclesiastics and Christians abstain
from provoking conflicts. The Prince and
members of the Yamen have heard that these
same ecclesiastics, to whatever nationality they
might belong, respected the law and customs
of the country where they dwelt ; that they
were not allowed to constitute in them a kind
of exceptional independence for themselves ;
and that the faults of every kind, such as con-
traventions of the law, insubordination towards
the authority of functionaries, abuses and usur-
pations of powers, acts prejudicial to the repu-
tation of the people, and oppressive towards

Appendix !!♦ 197

the people, which provoke its suspicions and
its resentment, are there severely repressed. If
the missionaries, before constructing the reli-
gious establishments in China and preaching
their doctrine there, avoided making themselves
odious to the principal men and people, the
suspicions would disappear, to give place to a
mutual confidence; concord would be perma-
nent ; one would not see churches destroyed,
and religions attacked. If these same mission-
aries, in pursuit of their work, could inspire in
the masses the conviction that their acts are
not opposed to their teaching ; if, remaining
deaf to the instigations of the Christians, they
avoided by denying themselves all interference
in the local administration, giving the support
of their influence to arbitrary and oppressive
acts which engender hatred among the notables
and the people, they might live in perfect har-
mony with the people, and the functionaries
would be in a position to protect them. Far
different is the conduct of the persons who
now come to China to propagate therein the
Christian religion. From the information
which the Prince and the Yamen have gathered

198 Appendix !!♦

(respecting the duties imposed on them by
their priesthood), these persons found as it
were among us an undetermined number of
States within the State. How, under these
conditions, can we hope that a durable under-
standing should be established, and to prevent
the governors and the governed uniting against
them in common hostility?

The Prince and the members of the Yamen
are impressed with a desire to ward off from
henceforth eventualities so menacing. In fact,
they fear in all sincerity lest, after the arrange-
ment of the Tientsin affair, the animosity of
the ignorant Christians of the Empire should
take a more decided tone of insolent bluster,
that the bitterness of the popular resentment
should increase, and that so much accumulated
bad feeling, causing a sudden explosion, should
bring about a catastrophe. It would then be
no longer possible for the local authorities, nor
for the high provincial functionaries, nor even
for the Tsung-li Yamen, to assert their author-
ity. In -the event of a general rising in China,
the Emperor will be able to appoint high dig-
nitaries to order them to assemble everywhere

Appendix !!• i99

Imposing forces ; but the greatest rigour does
not reach the masses, and where their anger
manifests itself, there are persons who refuse to
yield their heads to the executioner. Then,
when the evil becomes irremediable, and when
the wish we all have to preserve so great inter-
ests will no longer be effectual, the men who
direct the international affairs of China and of
Europe will not be suffered to decline the re-
sponsibility which falls on them. In short,
in the direction of affairs, the important point
in China as in Europe, is to satisfy opinion.
If failing in this duty, oppression and violence
are employed, a general rising will at last take
place. There are moments when the supreme
authority is disregarded. If the high function-
aries of China and the Europeans on whom
rests the responsibility of the affairs which now
form the object of our anxiety, remaining un-
moved spectators of a situation which threatens
the greatest danger to the Chinese people, as
well as to strangers, traders and individuals,,
make no effort to find a solution which may
effectually remedy the evil, it will follow that
it will be out of their power to deal in a satis-

200 Appendix U,

factory manner with the matters which interest
the pubUc. Consequently with the view of
protecting the great interests of general peace,
and of remedying the abuses above pointed
out, the Prince and the Members of the Yamen
have the honor to submit for your Excellency's
examination, a plan of Regulation in eight Ar-
ticles, which has also been communicated to
the Representatives of other Powers.

Draft of Regulations.

article i.

The Christians when they found an Orphan-
age give no notice to the authorities, and appear
to act with mystery : hence the suspicions and
hatred of the people. In ceasing to receive
children, the evil rumours which are now in cir-
culation would at the same time disappear.
If, however, there is a wish to continue this
work, only the children of necessitous Chris-
tians must be received, and then the authorities
ought to be informed, who would note the day
on which the child entered, the name of its
parents, and the day on which it left. It would

Appendix II* 201

also be necessary that power should be given
to strangers to adopt these children, and then
a good result would be arrived at. Lastly,
when it is a question of non-Christian children,
the high officials ought to give orders to the
local authorities, who should select proper
agents who could take all the measures which
appeared suitable to them.

In China the laws which regulate orphanages
are : that on the entrance and on the departure
of the children note is made of the person who
leaves them, or of the person who adopts them,
of the declaration made to the authorities, and
of the permission given to the parents to visit
their children. When they have become bigger,
they may be adopted by someone having no
children, or taken back by the parents them-
selves, and then no matter in what religion they
have been brought up, they return to the reli-
gions of their fathers. The child ought in
everything also to be treated well. In exercis-
ing this work of charity, it becomes a most
worthy work.

We have heard it said that in every country
matters are conducted in this respect very

202 Appendix II»

nearly as in China. How does it happen that,
once arrived in our country, foreigners no longer
follow these customs ? They take no note of
the family to which the child belongs, and they
do not give notice to the authorities. Once
the child has entered the house other persons
are not allowed to adopt it, nor are the parents
permitted to take it back again, nor even to
visit it. All this nourishes suspicions and ex-
cites the hatred of the people, and by degrees
a case like that of Tientsin is arrived at. Al-
though we have denied in a report all those
rumours of the tearing out of eyes and hearts,
the people, however, still preserve doubts on
the subject, and even if we succeed In closing
their lips we cannot drive away these doubts
from their minds. It is this kind of uneasiness
which gives rise to terrible events. It would
be a good thing to abolish the foreign orphan-
ages, and to transport them to Europe, where
they could practise their charity at their ease :
it would then belong to the Chinese to come
to the aid of these children. Besides, in every
province we have numerous orphanages, and
yet the foreigners wish to lend us at any price

Appendix 11. 203

an assistance of which we have not the slightest
need. It is certainly with good intentions they
thus act, but it is not the less true that their
conduct produces suspicion and excites anger.
It would be far preferable if each one exercised
his charity in his own country, and then no
lamentable event could arise.

ARTICLE 2.

Women ought no longer to enter the
churches, nor should sisters of charity live in
China to teach religion. This measure will
only render the Christians more respectable,
and will result in silencing evil rumours.

In China good reputation and modesty are
most important matters : men and women are
not even allowed to shake hands, nor to live
together : there ought to be a kind of line of
separation that cannot be overstepped. After
the treaty full liberty was given to the Chris-
tians, and then men and women went together
to church : hence rumours among the pubhc.
There are some places even where men and
women are together not only at church but also
in the interior of the house. The public look-

204 Appendix !!♦

ing at this in a light manner harbours suspicions,
and thinks that things contrary to propriety
take place.

ARTICLE 3.

The missionaries residing in China must
conform to the laws and customs of China.
They are not permitted to place themselves in
a kind of exceptional independence, to show
themselves recalcitrant to the authority of the
Government and of the officials, to attribute
to themselves powers which do not belong to
them, to injure the reputation of men, to
oppress the people, to asperse the doctrine of
Confucius, by which they give ground for the
suspicions, the resentments and the indignation
of the masses. The missionaries must submit
themselves, like everybody, to the authority
of the local officials ; and the Christian Chinese
must, in every case, be treated according to
the common law ; with the exception of the
expenses of theatrical solemnities and of the
worship of local protecting divinities from
which they are dispensed from contributing to,
the Christians cannot escape the requisitions

Appendix H* 205

and forced labour, and are constrained to
accept, like everybody else, the charges im-
posed by the local administration. With
stronger reason they cannot refuse to pay, in
their integrity, the land taxes and the rents,
nor can the missionaries advise them and sup-
port them in infringing the common law.
Cases for litigation between Christians and
non-Christians are under the equitable jurisdic-
tion of the authorities, and cannot be left to
the patronage of the missionaries. The latter
cannot keep away from the courts. Christians,
prosecutors or defendants, which, in a trial,
leads to delays and prejudices the parties in-
terested. In the cases in which missionaries
allow themselves to be mixed up in affairs
beyond their province, the local authorities
ought to send their verbal or written communi-
cations to the high provincial functionaries,
who will refer them in their turn to the Tsung-
li Yamen, in order that a decision may be
eventually taken as to the repatriation of these
same missionaries. In the cases where Chris-
tians in suits respecting matrimonial alliances
or property in land plume themselves on their

2o6 Appendix H.

position of Christians to invoke the interven-
tion of the missionaries, they will be severely
punished by the authorities.

China honours the religion of Confucius ;
that of Buddha and of Tao, as well as the
doctrine of the Lamas is also professed there.
Therefore it is contrary to usage that the latter,
although they may not be Chinese, should
ignore the decisions of the Chinese authorities,
by approving or blaming them. We hear it
said that the missionaries in foreign countries
are subject to the legislation of the country in
which they live, and that they are forbidden to
make themselves independent, to contravene
the law, to usurp authority, to attack the
character of people, or to prejudice them, or
to arouse the suspicion and resentment of the
people. Similarly the missionaries, who teach
their religion in China, ought to submit them-
selves to the authority of the magistrates of
this country ; nevertheless they are vauntingly
independent and do not recognise the authority
of the officials. Do they not thus place them-
selves without the pale of the law ? The
Christians in China remain Chinese subjects.

Appendix H* 207

and are only the more constrained to remain
faithful to their duties. In no case can indiffer-
ence be estabHshed between them and the rest
of the nation. The Christians in the towns
and in the country ought to Hve in good
harmony with their fellow countrymen. Yet,
in matters affecting the public when popular
subscriptions are opened or forced labour re-
quired, they put forward their position as
Christians to escape these burdens. They
themselves create an exception (in their favour).
How avoid that the rest of the nation accept
this exception (against them) ? Yet more,
they refuse the taxes and forced labour, they
intimidate the officials, they oppress those who
do not belong to their religion. The foreign
missionaries do not fully understand the situa-
tion : not only do they give an asylum to
Christians who are guilty of crimes and refuse
to deliver them up to justice, but they also
consent to protect unjustly those who have
only become converts because they have com-
mitted some crime. In the provinces the
Missionaries make themselves the advocates be-
fore the local authorities of the Christians who

2o8 Appendix !!•

have suits. Witness that Christian woman of
Sze-chuen who exacted from her tenants pay-
ments of a nature which were not due to her,
and ultimately committed a murder. A French
bishop took upon himself to address a despatch
to the authorities in order to plead for this
woman and procured her acquittal. This deed
aroused animosities among the people of Sze-
chuen which have lasted to this day. In
Kwei-chow, Christians who go to law style
themselves Christians in the charge sheet
(" acte d'accusation ") with the sole view of
gaining their cause. This is a well-known
abuse. It happens also that two families being
united by matrimonial ties, one is converted
to Christianity, then compels the other who is
not converted to break off the alliance.
Among people of the same blood one has
seen fathers and older brothers, after having
been converted lay an accusation for non-ful-
filment of family duties against their children
and younger brothers, for the sole reason that
these latter had refused to be converted. These
acts are encouraged by the missionaries. Are
not such practices of a nature to excite to the
highest degree the popular indignation ?

Appendix !!♦ 209

ARTICLE 4.

Chinese and foreigners living together ought
to be governed by the same laws. For example,
if a man kills another, he ought to be punished,
if a Chinaman, according to the Chinese law ;
if he is a foreigner, according to the law of his
country. In thus acting, order will reign ; it
matters little the manner in which the Chinese
or foreigners treat the case ; a punishment is
all that is necessary. But that punishment
once inflicted, they must not come and claim
indemnities, and abov« all they must not seek
the soi-disant abettor of the crime to exact
from him a certain sum. It belongs to the
local authorities to adjudicate on the differences
which may arise between the Christians and
the people. If it is a Pagan who has com-
mitted wrongs against a Christian, he ought to
be punished more or less severely, according
to the gravity of the fault ; similarly if it is a
question of a Christian accused by a Pagan.
The official ought to adjudicate with the most
perfect justice, and the greatest impartiality.
If a Christian conducts himself altogether

2IO Appendix !!♦

contrary to the laws, the local authority takes
evidence ; and if some one accuses this Chris-
tian, the latter is seized and judged. But the
missionaries must not then come forward to
defend him, and to exculpate him. If the
case arises of a missionary preventing a Chris-
tian giving himself up to the commands of the
authority, the Christian alone ought not to be
punished, but also the missionary, or at least
he ought to be sent back to his own country.

In the sixth year of the reign of T'ung Chih,
a missionary, M. Mabileau, was killed in Sze-
chuen. The murderer, named Yang Lao-wu,
was arrested and condemned to death. But
besides that, Mr. Mihieres accused a man who
formed part of the class of literates of having
been the instigator of that murder, in order to
exact from him an indemnity of 80,000 taels.

The individuals who commit disorders ordi-
narily belong to the lowest classes of the
people. -When they are guilty of some crime,
they are seized and punished ; but accusations
ought not to be brought against the literates
to exact from them large indemnities. Such
conduct excites hatred.

Appendix !!♦ 211

In the eighth year of the reign of T^ung
Chih, a missionary, Mr. Rigaud, was killed in
Sze-chuen ; the cause of the murder was an
alliance between two families, which fell through.
The Tartar General Ch'^ung and the Governor
General Li judged this case. They caused the
murderer of Mr. Rigaud to be arrested, a man
named Ho-tsai, and the murderer of a Chris-
tian named Liang-fu, both belonging to the
lowest class. One was condemned to have his
head cut off, the other to be hanged. The
Christians further killed some of the people ;
every year there were conflicts between credi-
tors and debtors, rapes ana fires.

The instigators of all this were Wang Hsiao-
ting, Ch'^ang Tien-hsing, and others. It was
desired to seize and punish them, but they did
not surrender themselves to the commands of
the authority. Further, the Christians again,
under the leadership of a priest named Tan
Fu-ch'en, killed Chao Yung-lin, and 200 other
persons. The surrender of this missionary was
demanded ; but the Abbe Mihi^res said that
he had left for Europe ; and that there was no
means of arranging this case. Hence great
anger among the inhabitants of Sze-chuen.

212 Appendix 11*

ARTICLE

The passports given to the (French) mis-
sionaries who penetrate into the interior ought
clearly to bear mention of the province and of
the prefecture where they intend to repair.
The names and titles of the bearer, and these
conditions, that he will not be able clandestinely
to betake himself to another province and that
the passport is personal, will be equally com-
prised in this document. The missionary
ought not to pass through the Custom House
and toll-bar contraband articles of merchan-
dize which are liable to duty. On his arrival
at a destination other than that designated in
the passport, or if this document has been
handed over to a Christian Chinaman with the
object of making him pass himself off as a mis-
sionary, the said passport shall be cancelled.
On the other hand, if it be ascertained that the
bearer has gained possession of it by pecuniary
payment, or that he has committed some other
serious breach of the law, the individual who
shall have thus falsely assumed the position of
a missionary shall be punished, and the real

Appendix H* 213

missionary shall be sent back to his own
country. In order that the control may be
exercised everywhere, the name of the mis-
sionary shall be inserted in the passport, in
Chinese characters, which will be taken as
proof. The passport shall be cancelled in
cases where the titulary should have gone back
to his own country, should have died, or
should have abandoned missionary work.
Passports will not be granted in the provinces
where there are rebels, nor even hereafter for
those where the Imperial army is operating, —
with the evident object of securing loyally the
safeguard of the missionaries.

In support of the above scheme the Yamen
will recall a missionary case which occurred in
Kwei-chow where a certain Chao acted as mis-
sionary, albeit his name had no place in the
passport register. The Yamen received a
letter on this subject from Mr. Interpreter
Deveria, in which the latter showed how, ac-
cording to an old French register, the mur-
dered missionary Chao had received a pass-
port, dated the 2nd day of the 6th month of
the 4th year of T'ung-chih, in which he was

214 Appendix 11.

called Jui-Lo-ssij ; that his name of Chao was
erroneous ; that the victim was really the said
Jui-Lo-ssu ; that, on the other hand, the same
Jui-Lo-ssii was inserted under number 325 as
going to Sze-chuen and thence to Kwei-chow.
However, the Yamen was able to convince it-
self that neither this name of Chao nor that of
Jui-Lo-ssu figured on its passport register.
There was, therefore, a double mistake in the
name of the missionary and in that of his resi-
dence. How, then, could one establish an
identity and secure to the party interested
efficacious protection ?

There was also an affair of murder com-
mitted by the missionary Splingaert on the
person of a Russian. This Splingaert was first
of all a missionary, then entered the Prussian
Legation as constable. He none the less re-
tained his passport, so that he handed it over
to some one else, or lost it, so that not only
an abuse, in passing as a missionary, occurred,
but grave inconveniences to public affairs might
have arisen in case the said passport had fallen
into the hands of rebels. On the other hand,
the dignity of missionaries seems to us to be
seriously injured by such irregularities.

Appendix !!♦ 215

ARTICLE 6.

The aim of the missionaries being to exhort
men to virtue, it is befitting that before admit-
ting an individual to the privileges of religion,
he should be examined as to whether he has
undergone any sentence or committed any
crime. If this examination be in his favour
he may become a Christian ; if the contrary he
should not be allowed to become one. One
ought, moreover, to act as the ministers of our
religion do, who give notice to the inspectors
of ten families, and cause the name of the per-
son to be entered in the register with this pur-
pose. In the same way the missionaries ought
to give notice to the authorities, who will take
note of the day of the month and of the year
of admittance, of the country, and of the
station in life of the individual, and will ascer-
tain if he has ever undergone any sentence, or
if he has ever changed his name. By acting
thus all confusion will be avoided. If a Chris-
tian should be sent on a mission, and he should
die on the way, notice should be given to the
proper authority. If, after being converted, a

21 6 Appendix !!♦

person commits some crime, he should be dis-
missed, and no longer regarded as belonging to
the religion. Every month, or at least every
three months, the authorities ought to be in-
formed of the number of conversions. The
authorities also should act as they do in regard
to our temples, that is to say, they should go
every month, or at least every three months,
to inspect the missions. This course will do
no harm to religion, but, on the contrary, will
ensure tranquillity.

In the ninth year of the reign of T'ung Chih,
the Government of Kwei-chow gave notice to
the Yamen that at Kwei-'ting-hsien some peo-
ple, who were formerly nothing better than
thieves, were forming a part of a militia of
which the Christians, Yuan Yu-hsiang and
Hsia Chen-hsing, were the leaders. Passing
themselves off as Christians, these men were
highly thought of; however, they committed
all sorts of disturbances, killed Wang Chiang-
pao and Tso Yin-shu, seriously wounded three
other persons, and carried off from the houses
not only money, but also all the objects which
they contained, even down to the very cattle.

Appendix !!♦ 217

In the eighth year of the reign of T'ung Chih
the Governor of Kwei-chow again warned our
Yamen that at Tsun Yi-hsien a petition had
been addressed, with the object of declaring
that some rebels, of whom the leaders were
Sun Yu-shan, T'ang Shen-hsien, T'ang Yuan-
shuai, Chien Yuen-shuai, had embraced the
Catholic religion, and that they still continued
within and without the town to stir up inde-
scribable and countless disturbances and trou-
bles. In the same place, also, some people
named Yang Hsi-po, Liu Kai-wen, Ching
Hsiao-ming, Ho Wen-chiu, Chao Wen-an had
embraced the Catholic religion, and were even
employed in the interior of the mission. How-
ever, outside they practised all sorts of exac-
tions upon the orphans, and intimidated those
who were poor in spirit. They were perpetu-
ally to the Yamen, and undertook to regulate
the trials. In an affair between a Christian and
a countryman, if the mandarin administered
justice to the latter, they collected the Chris-
tians, invaded the Yamen, and forced the au-
thorities to reverse the sentences. If, in spite
of that, the mandarin would not give the

21 8 Appendix !!♦

Christian up to them, they returned with the
card of a missionary, and claimed on his behalf
the liberty of their friend.

Besides, they committed all sorts of attempts
upon persons and properties; if resistance was
offered them, they struck blows and did not
even fear to kill, and were guilty besides of
many other crimes.

ARTICLE 7.

The missionaries ought to observe Chinese
customs, and to deviate from them in no re-
spect ; for instance, they ought not to make
use of seals, the use of which is reserved for
functionaries alone. It is not allowed them to
send despatches to a Yamen, whatever may be
their importance. If, however, for an urgent
matter it should be absolutely necessary to
write, they may do it ; but taking good care
not to speak of matters beyond the subject,
and making use like people belonging to the
class of literates, of the Ping-tieh (petition).
When the missionaries visit a great mandarin,
they must observe the same ceremonies as
those exacted from the literates ; if they visit a

Appendix IL 219

mandarin of inferior rank, they must also con-
form to the customary ceremonies. They
must not unceremoniously go into the Yamens
and bring disorder and confusion into the
affair.

In the sixth year of the reign of T'ung Chih
the Governor of Sze-chuen wrote to us that
the French Bishop, Monseigneur Pinchon,
had, in a letter which he sent to the authorities,
made use of an official seal manufactured by
himself.

In the seventh year of the reign of T^ung
Chih, Monseigneur Faurie,^ Bishop of Kwei-
chow, handed to the officer charged with the
remission of the letters of the Government, a
despatch to the address of the Yamen to ask
that marks of distinction should be accorded to
a Taoutae called To Wen, and to other per-
sons besides.

In Shan-tung a missionary passed himself
off as Hsiun-fu (Provincial Governor).

In Sze-chuen and Kwei-chow missionaries
took upon themselves to demand the recall of
mandarins who had not arranged their affairs to
1 Mentioned as Faure, p. 86.

220 Appendix K

their satisfaction. So it is not only the author-
ity of simple functionaries that they assume ;
they claim, further, a power which the Sover-
eign alone possesses. After such acts how
could general indignation fail to be aroused?

ARTICLE 8.

Missionaries shall not be allowed to claim,
as belonging to the church, the property which
it may please them to designate; in this way no
difficulty will arise. If the missionaries wish to
buy a portion of land on which to build a
church, or hire a house in which to take up
their residence, they must, before concluding
the bargain, go with the real proprietor and
make a declaration to the local authority who
will examine whether the Feng-shui presents
any obstacle. If the official decides that no
inconvenience arises from the Feng-shui, it will
then be necessary to ask the consent of the in-
habitants of the place. These two formalities
fulfilled, it will be necessary besides, in the
text of the contract, to follow the ruling pub-
lished in the fourth year of the reign of T'ung-
chih, that is to say, to declare that the land

Appendix !!♦ 221

belongs with full rights to Chinese Christians.
It will not be allowed in the purchase of prop-
erties to make a transfer making use of another
name than that of the real purchaser ; it will
also be forbidden to make this transfer in man-
ner contrary to law, following the advice of
dishonest people.

The missionaries residing constantly in
China must strive to inspire confidence, so as
not to excite the discontent and aversion of the
people ; but on the contrary to live on good
terms with them without ever exciting suspi-
cion. At this moment there is almost always
discord between the two parties, and the cause
of it is the conduct of the Christians. So as
regards the property of the church, there have
been claims during these last years in all the
provinces, and the missionaries exact the res-
titution, without troubling themselves as to
whether it wounds the susceptibility of the
people or is injurious to their interests. Be-
sides there are fine houses belonging to the
literates that they claim, and expel the pro-
prietor from them at the shortest notice. But
what is worst, and what wounds the dignity of

222 Appendix II*

the people, is that they often claim as their
property Yamens, places of assembly, temples
held in high respect by the literates and the
inhabitants of the neighbourhood.

Certainly, in each province are houses which
formerly belonged to the Church; but note
must be taken of the number of years which
have passed since, and it must be remem-
bered that Christians sold these houses, and
that they have, perhaps, passed through
the hands of several proprietors. It must
also be remembered that the house was, per-
haps, old and dilapidated when sold, and that
the purchaser has, perhaps, incurred great
expense in repairs, or has even built a new
one. The missionaries take no account of
all this, they exact a restitution, and do not
even offer the least indemnity. Sometimes
they even ask for repairs to be made, or if not,
for a sum of money. Such conduct excites
the indignation of the people, who look with
no favourable eye on the missionaries. Such
being the case no friendship can exist.

The facts that are stated in this Memoran-
dum have been chosen as examples among

Appendix II* 223

many others to demonstrate what is irregular
in the acts of the missionaries, and to prove
the impossibihty of Christians and non-Chris-
tians Hving harmoniously.

It is urgent, therefore, to seek a remedy for
the evil ; both one and the other will find it to
their advantage, and it will obviate this sole
question of the missions becoming fatal to the
great interests of peace between China and the
West.

We do not attempt to enumerate the many
matters which are agitating in the provinces.
The object is to separate the tares from the
good grain, to punish the wicked in the inter-
est of the good. With respect to commerce,
for instance, merchants guilty of dishonesty
are severely punished in order to protect the
honour of commerce in general. From the
time that the missionaries admit every one,
without taking care to distinguish between the
good and the bad, these last pour into the
Christian community, and relying on the sup-
port of the missionaries molest people of
property and despise the authority of the
magistrates. Under these conditions the re-

224 Appendix U*

sentment of the multitude grows deep. If
the entire Chinese people should, hke the
inhabitants of Tientsin, come to detest for-
eigners, the supreme authority itself could no
longer be able to interpose efficaciously. Such
are the dangers which the present situation
implies.

The rules which we now propose are the
last expression of our firm will to protect the
missionaries, and have nothing in their import
hostile to them. If they sincerely endeavour
to conform themselves to them, good harmony
might be maintained ; if, on the other hand,
the missionaries consider these same rules in
the light of attempts upon their independence,
or contrary to their rites, they may cease to
preach their religion in China. The Chinese
government treats its Christian and its non-
Christian subjects on a footing of perfect
equality ; that is the evident proof that it is
not opposed to the work of the missions. In
return, the missionaries, allowing themselves
to be duped by the Christians, do not adhere
faithfully to their duties. From this state of
things a hatred of the masses must result.

Appendix II* 225

which it will be very difficult to combat, and
a general overthrow of order, which will make
all protection an impossibility. It would be
far better from henceforth to speak the truth
frankfully.

APPENDIX III.

fM

SUMMARY OF THE CHING-SHIH-WEN-
SHU-PIENS OR "BLUE BOOKS."

RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDISM : ONE OF THE MOST

IMPORTANT POINTS AS REGARDS INTERCOURSE WITH

FOREIGNERS.

Bj' LI PENG-YUAN.

It is our opinion that foreign missionaries
are in very truth the source whence springs all
trouble in China. Foreigners come to China
from a distance of several ten thousands of
miles and from about ten different countries
with only two objects in view, namely trade and
religious propagandism. With the former they
intend to gradually deprive China of her wealth,
and with the latter they likewise seek to steal
away the hearts of her people. The ostensible

1 This is the work referred to on pp. 64 and 137, as "^King-
sz-wen."

226

Appendix III* 227

pretext they put forward is the cultivation of
friendly relations ; what their hidden purpose
is, is unfathomable, but the fact remains that
trouble between Christian converts and the
common people is for ever cropping up.

Originally the nations of the West had only
one religion, that of Christ ; but this one reli-
gion has now divided itself into three ; that of
Jesus (Protestants), that of the Lord of Heaven
(Roman Catholics), and that known as "Hsila"
(Hellenic or Greek Church). The character-
istic to these religions of theirs is that whether
united or divided, whether in prosperity or in
adversity, their missionaries must go abroad
throughout the world and endeavour to con-
vert men to their religion and lead them to fol-
low in their path. Now that China has given
permission to foreigners to proclaim their doc-
trines she must according to treaty extend them
her protection, but wherever missionaries go
they ought to be subject to the local authori-
ties and not mix themselves up with public
affairs. It is unfortunately the case that evilly
disposed natives of China constantly rely on
the protection which their conversion to the

228 Appendix HI*

foreign religion affords them, and on the
strength thereof they commit every kind of
base and illegal action. They impose on the
more simple minded of their fellow villagers,
they insult and oppress the orphans and the
weak, they forcibly abduct the wives of others,
they take violent possession of land which is
not their own, they make difficulties about pay-
ing rent due to their landlord, they defiantly
decline in open court to contribute their pro-
portion of legal taxes, they raise a quarrel about
some public matter and then seek to throw the
blame on others, and on account of some pri-
vate disagreement they go even to the length
of beating and murdering peaceable citizens.
Every sort of crime can be laid to their charge,
and it would be difficult to draw up a complete
list of their transgressions. The missionaries
without sufficient knowledge of the real facts
of the case, and deceived by their ex parte state-
ments, are in the habit of coming forward as
their protectors and openly assisting them. It
often happens that they hide away the defend-
ant in a suit in order that he may not appear
in court, and in certain instances when the guilt

Appendix III* 229

of an offender has been conclusively proved
and his punishment decided on, they in the
most public manner have connived at his get-
ting away to a foreign country, with the result
that he is not to be had and the case remains
in abeyance.

Many officials, moreover, induced by a dread
of complications, act from the beginning with
too excreme caution, and in ignorance of for-
eign laws are glad to compromise a case any-
how. The result is that justice is never done,
and the people always have a grievance. Nat-
urally, as causes for complaint accumulate, the
spirit of resentment waxes stronger day by day,
and a desire for revenge is created, which cul-
minates in the destruction of Chapels and the
ill-treatment of missionaries, and feuds be-
tween missionary converts and their neighbours
go on increasing. Although of course the
high authorities concerned take steps to arrange
these matters, they are for the greater part far
removed from the scene of action, and but im-
perfectly acquainted with the hidden details ;
and as it often happens that their respective
laws differ, each holds firmly to his own opin-

230 Appendix HI*

ion, and the settlement of the case becomes
more complicated and protracted. They {i.e.;,
the foreigners), however, are in the habit of
resorting to force, and using all manner of in-
timidation, press their point, so that even
after the principal offenders have been pun-
ished, they claim compensation for the de-
stroyed property, and even after the officials
have lost their posts they, on the strength of
these occurrences, clamour for the opening of
more ports — proceedings contrary to all prin-
ciples of right and justice, and utterly opposed
to treaty stipulations.

The nature of the situation calls for the
adoption of some satisfactory agreement to be
observed by both sides which will conduce
towards the maintenance of peaceful relations
for the future.

Now, no Chinese subject at all cognizant of
right and justice or in any way imbued with a
spirit of virtue would allow himself to be led
away by these doctrines of theirs. Those who
do become converts are either so actuated by
mercenary motives that they have lost all self-
respect, or are labouring under some hallucina-

Appendix III* 231

tion which they have not been able to throw
off; they are either evilly disposed persons
who want influence on their side or criminals
who seek to escape justice. They must in the
first instance have a contempt for law and
order ere they would dare to rebel thus against
reason and true principles.

Again, although the missionaries are foreign-
ers, their converts still remain Chinese subjects,
and a large enough concession forsooth has
been made to the spirit of friendliness and
toleration in allowing the missionaries to carry
on religious propagandism at all, without up-
holding their converts against the rest of the
people. Surely it is not our wish to first force
the whole nation to embrace their doctrines
and then clap our hand for joy ! Such a
calamity would be too deep for words.

For the future the name of every convert
should be entered on a list held by the local
authorities and communicated to the Consul
concerned ; and each convert should have the
two characters " Chiao-min " inserted on his
" men-p'ai," (i.e., the slip of paper on each
house door describing the inmates). There

232 Appendix HI*

should also be some distinction of dress, and
if any dispute arise it ought to be decided
according to Chinese law by the local authori-
ties, the Consul sitting as assessor. The
missionary ought not to be allowed to protect
the criminal in any way. Should the defendant
prior to his being arraigned not have his name
on the list above mentioned he is not to be
considered a convert, and will be dealt with by
the local authorities as they see fit, the mission-
ary of course in such a case having less than
ever to do with the proceedings.

Should any missionary mix himself up with
any public matter or resort to intimidation in
any way some severe punishment must be
meted out to him, and his Minister be imme-
diately requested to have him sent back to his
own country ^^ four encourager les autres"

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